Hello everyone!
I hope things are well with your lives today, and that in all the Easter hype, you're finding time to reflect on the true meaning of the holiday - the resurrection of our Lord.
Tomorrow, many of us will be going to church for an Easter service and will undoubtedly learn of the great sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ, how He was delivered into the hands of evil men, crucified, and then how He died for our sins, only to rise having "defeated death and the grave" in glorious victory. So, keeping this in mind, I won't preach your Easter Sunday message on Saturday afternoon - I'll leave that up to the more capable and more knowledgeable. However, I would like to point out one thing, and that is the nature of love which Christ demonstrated perfectly on the cross. You've probably heard this countless times, but it is so very important that saying it just once doesn't do it justice.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:13-15, ESV
Greater love has no one than someone laying down his life for his friends - and this is exactly what Jesus did for us. We have no greater love in our lives than the love of Christ. No one has ever loved you, nor will ever love you, as much as Christ does - never let anyone tell you otherwise.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:16-17, ESV
God is the very nature of love. As we abide in Him, the nature of love is perfected within us as well. Do you want to learn to love more? Look to God, abide in Him, and this will be perfected in you. As the source of all things good, He is the only one we can look to for both the example, and the empowerment, to love more - both of which are given freely at the cross. Let us keep this in mind as we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our Lord's resurrection, and I pray that you all have a blessed Easter Sunday!
Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:16-17, NKJV
Blessings,
Andrew
