There's some Thomas in all of us.

Sceptics have always been in abundance, particularly when it comes to believing in God in general, and even in Jesus more specifically, let alone His resurrection.  And you would think that particularly in this advanced age of technology that all religion would be relegated to the trash bin of myth and allegory.  But not so.  In fact science is now beginning to answer the age old question of how light which is billions of light years away could have been visible by Adam in 6 short 24 hour days.  Hmm...that's a mind bender, but it's true, and we're beginning to discover how that happened.  But let's get back to the subject at hand.  Jesus rising from the dead.  The power of testimony still stands today.  Let's take a second look.

I think because it's been 2000 years since Jesus' resurrection that many people do not believe it to be true, and therefore they don't really considering that He is God and that what He has told us is the absolute truth.  There's much to say about that: Why 2000 years? Is He coming back, and if so, when?  We'll get into that some day soon, but what about right now? Today, with all the fear and insanity, particularly with a worldwide pandemic?  Take a moment, a breath, and listen.  God bless, and happy Easter and Passover Week.

Over the past few weeks we've been talking about the walls in life we build around ourselves.  We just had Easter, the very event which broke down the final wall between us and our God. That's the biggest deal of all; not having any fear of death, as it has absolutely no control over us who entrust our lives to and in our Living Lord.  Emphasis on Living.  

Death, not so much!  One of the things that irritates me about common criticisms or notions that scripture is just a compilation of oral traditions, reverse engineering of history, or just plain fabrications is the fact that professional researchers of historical documents, regardless of their bias, will all concur that the prophetic books of Hosea and Isaiah were written and compiled long before the time of Jesus.  And yet both predicted something that not even the best of scholars of their day could anticipate: The permanent removal of death. 

It's Easter. Again. And maybe that's why. We're so used to the Easter story of Jesus rising from the dead, so common, so repetitive. And on top of that most folks these days don't believe in Him anyhow.  They treat Christianity as just another "religion", just another theology of so many others.

But Here's the deal.  He's real. The resurrection of a man who just happened also to be the creator of the entire universe, down to every subatomic particle.  So this whole business of forgiveness really is a big deal.  It's the biggest of deals, so we need to listen to the story. Yes, again, one more time.

For almost everyone, when life's circumstances seem overwhelming the question usually arises, 'Why is God allowing this to happen?'  Hopefully this series might help in getting some perspective.

We're looking at Isaiah 53 today. There are way too many zero's you have to add to the probability that Isaiah's prophecy could ever be fulfilled.  But it did. And there's so much to learn.

We are continuing our discussion from last week in Isaiah in our effort to understand the full impact of what Jesus has done for us on the cross.

Many of us remember the exact incident when we "gave our life to the Lord".  We now had our guaranteed security, on our way to heaven for sure and certain.  It's a scary proposition.  I've heard so many say, "It doesn't matter what I do, what sin or sins I commit.  From now on I'm guaranteed my salvation".  That kind of attitude frightens me beyond description.  A one time "prayer of confession" is the beginning of a lifetime commitment of love and obedience. It's the beginning of a journey, not an end in and of itself.  We've been guaranteed that Jesus paid the price on the cross. He did the work of bringing peace between sinful man and Himself, and Jesus continues to do the work, every day, every moment.  We yield and He gives us the continued ability.  Yes, we may fail from time to time, but He stands ready to wash us clean, every moment, every day.