“This blessed life is not an attainment, but an obtainment. The soul must fully recognize it is God’s gift in Christ Jesus and cannot be gained by any efforts or works on our own. God can bestow the gift only upon the fully consecrated soul, to be received by faith and great thankfulness.

I once tried to explain consecration to the physician in charge of a large hospital. ‘Suppose in your rounds a patient entreats you to take his case under your special care in order to cure him, but at the same time refuses to tell you his symptoms or take your prescribed remedies. He tells you, ‘I am quite willing to follow the directions that seem good to me, but in other matters I prefer judging for myself and following my own directions.’ What would you do?’

‘Do!’ the doctor replied indignantly. ‘I can do nothing for a patient unless he puts his whole case into my care and obeys my directions. Doctors must be implicitly obeyed, if they are to have any chance to cure their patients.’

‘That is consecration,’ I continued. ‘God must have the whole case put into His hands, and His directions must
be implicitly followed.’

‘I see it!’ he exclaimed. ‘And I will do it; God shall have His own way with me from henceforth!’

An entire surrender of spirit, soul and body to His control in a life of inevitable obedience may look hard to a soul ignorant of God. To those who know Him, it is the happiest and most restful of lives. Could we but for one moment get a glimpse into the mighty depths of His love, our hearts would spring out to His will and embrace it as our richest treasure.”

Source: Hannah Whitall Smith
“The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life”

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If you tear down a sparrow’s nest the bird will soon build the nest again in the same place as it was before. However, if you pull the nest down a couple times, the sparrow will seek a new place–a location that is higher up, and beyond your destructive reach.

Sometimes God’s creatures are wiser than Christians. Too many Christians form dwelling places in this temporal world – places of security in money, relationships, power, fame, and status – only to see them pulled down time after time. Yet after each brief interval of hurt, frustrations, and pain, they begin building all over again in the same places.

They never realize that through their affliction the Lord is directing them to put their security higher up – not building here, but in heaven.

Copyright 1999 by Ken Sapp

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Imagine that I gave you a new car. It’s a nice car, it runs well. You’d be excited wouldn’t you? A nice new car to drive around. But there are a few conditions.

1. You can only have the car one morning a week. The rest of the time it stays at my house and you can not use it.
2. Oh yeah- by the way, that one morning a week I will come to your house and pick you up. You can ride in the passenger seat. We will only go where I want to go, and after a few hours, I will drop you off again until the next week.

Yet this is what many of us do in our relationship with God. It’s not a car we give to God, but our life. But we place conditions.

1. You can only have my life for a few hours on Sunday.
2. I’ll keep control, You are just a passenger.. you cannot make decisions. I’ll decide what church things I will attend and you can be there with me. Then after you have had your joy ride with me I’ll take my life back and see you again next week.

Is this your life?

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“It is finished.” The implication of the Greek word is “This is complete.” It is accomplished, fulfilled, completed. Then you can put an exclamation point after the phrase. There is no question mark. Redemption is complete. You can’t add to it. You can’t subtract from it. It doesn’t need something added to it. Jesus accomplished perfect redemption for men. He completed what we could not even begin. His blood was shed. It’s more than all the blood of all the sacrifices ever offered.

Hebrews 10:8-14: “First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

Christ finished the task God purposed him to do. God finished his work on the Cross so that his redemption might be complete in our lives.

Have you completed the task God has for you? Can you say “It is Finished. I have completed what God has given me to do? God’s plan and purpose for my life have been accomplished. God has used the minutes, hours, days, months and years that have been entrusted to me and God’s will and purpose have been done in my life.”

John, standing at the foot of the cross, relays to us Christ’s final words. They are words, not of despair, but of triumph – “It is finished.” His redemption for you and me is complete. There is nothing we can do to add to it. There is nothing we can do to earn it. Nothing can take it away.

All that is left for us to do, is in gratitude and love to let him to continue to reach out to a lost and dying world through us. To proclaim God’s offer of redemption triumphantly to anyone who will place themselves at the foot of the cross. Our prayer is that God might finish His purpose through us as well!

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“Into thine hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46)

It has been suggested that since the Lord’s last words were “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit”, His first words at the resurrection would have been a continuation of the Psalm 31:5 from which He had quoted: “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth”. But David didn’t say Ps. 31:5 on his deathbed. They were not words of despair. It was not a final giving in after a time of struggle. Instead, it was an expression of David’s desire to commit his soul to the Father in gratefulness and praise.

It’s so difficult to place our lives into the hands of someone else. The apostles must have been quite disturbed to hear Jesus first words from the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34). Those words, taken from Psalm 22, words begin with David’s feelings of despair but end with words of thanksgiving for victory.

When Jesus said, “Father, into your hands,” He knew He was in safe keeping because He was in His Father’s hands. He knew God would never drop Him and He was safe and secure. Jesus speaking of us said, no man would be able to pluck us out of the hands of God. Paul said the same thing in 2 Timothy 1:12: “For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

We do not need to fear. We are in the hands of God. We must make the same journey from isolation and despair with God’s seeming lack of help – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” to commitment to allow God to finish his will in us – “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”.

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At times in Christ’s life, we see both His humanity and His divinity. When Jesus said that He was thirsty…we see His humanity.

The Son of God the divine Creator of the rivers and oceans of water said, “I thirst.” The Son of God who makes the rain to fall from the sky and the fountains to burst forth from the depths of the earth said, “I thirst.” The one who said, “I am the water of life and anyone who comes to me and drinks, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water,” Thirsts.

The words of Jesus not only show us his humanity, but they were also a quote from Psalm 69:31. “I thirst and they gave me vinegar to drink.” It was an obscure passage. But John the Apostle, from the foot of he cross, heard the detail, and saw it and recorded it.

Psalm 22:15 from which Christ’s first words on the cross were spoken hints at this as well. “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.” Some have suggested it was not to alleviate Christ’s thirst or relieve the suffering that he makes his request. Instead, it was to momentarily relieve the dryness in his mouth so that His next, and final triumphant words might be uttered clearly and triumphantly.

As we approach Easter, we are reminded that Christ suffered as one of us, yet was also divine. He knows true suffering. On the cross he clearly identifies himself with us, and suffers with us, in our place so that on Easter morning his divinity might clearly burst forth! God knows what you are going through. Don’t be afraid to cry out to God. He hears your cries. He knows your thirst. And he offered himself as living water that you might never thirst again. He offered himself to death on the cross that you might live forever with him in paradise.

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
This phrase feels very familiar. I wonder how many times we have asked God the same question. Where are you? Where were you when this happened in my life? Why did you abandon me in my greatest time of need? Why don’t you do something? I am hurting here! Where is your comfort?

Yet at the same time, we know that God is working according to his eternal purposes. We know it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. We still have those feelings. There are times we all feel abandoned, isolated, as if we are going through things alone. We know that God cares but sometimes it is hard to reconcile the reality of the moment with the truths we know. And we’re not alone in these feelings.

King David wrote these exact same words in Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His words continue: “why are you so far from saving me Lord? Why are you so far from my groaning? Why do I cry out to you, but you do not answer?” King David had these feelings in his heart that God had forsaken him, abandoned him, deserted him.

Job also experienced many personal tragedies. He lost his farms, his animals, his children, his wife, his health, and his friends. Job lost everything. And he also felt as if God had abandoned him, deserted him. Job even went one step further and was angry with God.

Yet God still loved both David and Job, even in the midst of their crying out to him in frustration and hurt. God still loved Jesus when Jesus expressed those feelings and he also loves us when we express them.

This Easter, remember that God can handle your feelings. He understands. He cares. Be honest with him. And in the end all things will work out. As someone I know says, “In the End, everything will work out. If it hasn’t worked out, its not the end yet.” God’s work isn’t finished yet. That comes later!

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“Woman, your son; Son, your mother.”
Jesus is in the middle of incredible pain and yet he is thinking about others. So many times when we are in pain we seem to take it out on others. Not Jesus!

“Woman”
Imagine as a mother what Mary must have felt to see her son on the cross. In reality, we can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like. It must have been the most gut wrenching event of her life. Every parent feels the pain of a child, and crucifixion is considered one of the most painful ways to die ever devised by man. Yet she was with Jesus at the foot of the cross. I am sure she felt every nail and was gripped by sadness.

“Son”, “Mother”
God knows us each by name, but Jesus did not use the name of John or Mary. He referred to them by terms related to a family relationship. His request is very simple…. take care of each other as a mother and son. In times of great stress and distress we need support from family and friends. And with the family of God, we all have a new, much extended family.

Thoughts for Easter
I wonder if you are going through a painful experience in your own life. Are you looking for sympathy or looking after others. Are you focused on your own pain, or the pain others are experiencing? Instead of focusing on your own pain this Easter, remember those around you. There may be people suffering, that in the midst of your own pain, you hadn’t noticed were hurting. Their pain may seem insignificant compared to yours, but for Jesus it was important that those near to him were comforted in times of great distress.

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Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

“Today”
Jesus makes a huge promise to the sinner next to him on the cross. Today you will be with me in paradise. Immediately. Instantly. Now. Not tomorrow. Not in a hundred years. Not in a in a thousand years. Not in a in a million years. Not at the second coming of Christ. But today. Immediately. I don’t understand what awaits us after we pass through the doors of death, but I know eternal life awaits beyond.

“Today, You”
You. That means you and me. We will be in paradise with God when we die. I don’t believe Christ’s promise is only towards the thief on the cross but Christ’s promise is directed towards you and me as well.

“Today, You will be with me”
With me. The emphasis in the Bible is not on being reunited with our loved ones from earth though I also believe that will happen. The Bible focuses on something even better… We will be with Christ, we will be in God’s Presence.

“Today, You will be with me in paradise”
We will seen the face and glory of God. We will be with loved ones. There will no war nor starvation nor evil for these things will have been all destroyed. It will be paradise! I can’t explain and any explanation will fall far short of the reality. Its beyond anything we can comprehend.

God loves us and he wants us to know that we will be with him. His presence is what really matters. Its his presence that makes it paradise. But God also promises his presence with us today. Are you able to see the presence of God in your life today! Its only a foretaste of what it will be like when in paradise, when the overwhelming presence of God is truly revealed in all his glory! Don’t wait… it can begin today!

Easter Collection

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