resurrection day

"I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said." (1 corinthians 15:3-4, NLT)

this is a day for TRUE celebration!

i shared a little this week with our fusion choir about what we celebrate on "easter" as followers of Jesus. i had read 1 corinthians 15 this past week and was struck by verses 12-58; that as "gentiles" our faith and hope rests on Jesus victory over sin and death. if Christ did not rise from the dead we would have no hope of the resurrection!

"And if Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless" (vs. 14).

our faith hangs on the resurrection! it is our only hope to be forgiven and adopted Children of God. without Jesus' victory over the grave we would still stand condemned in our sins (vs. 17) and could be considered the most miserable of all people because our hope ends in this life (vs. 19). if Christ did not rise from the dead then our 70+ years on this earth are everything, and we might as well "feast and get drunk, for tomorrow we die!" (vs. 32).

"But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again" (vs. 20).

the Good News is that Jesus humbled himself and came to earth, lived a perfect life, shed His blood and died an undeserved death in our place, and was victorious over sin and death! more than 500 of His followers can testify to this (vs. 6) and because of that we can experience fellowship with a Holy God on this earth and the hope to spend eternity together with Him!

that is a reason to celebrate!

"It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you..." (vs. 2)

amen.

where is the Kingdom of God?

youtube of the month: april

HILARIOUS!

the reaction of the kids tells me that this wasnt the first time they had seen dad dance like this...

my current jam

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estonians in lv

what an amazing team!

our team hosted a team of seven estonians from march 25-27 who wanted to come to latvia to serve their "latvian neighbors." i was blessed to see their heart for Jesus and genuine love for each other and "their neighbors" to the south. we walked the streets of cēsis and valmiera and handed out 400 loaves of bread for free as a symbol of the love that is expressed in Jesus ("the true bread from heaven" john 6:32). over those three days we had numerous opportunities to talk and pray with people also on the streets of rīga and in the town of liepa. we even had one man who prayed and confessed Jesus as his Lord and Savior! amazing huh?! it was unbelievable to see the fruit that God brought through our short time serving together! something just felt right about it. i came away from the weekend surprised by how open people were to talking about God with complete strangers and challenged to not hide the gift of the true bread that i am freely offered in Jesus, but to share it wherever i am! amen.

will you join me in praying for our estonian brothers and sister? (pictured above from left to right: kirilin, kaur, andrus, innar, mattias, kuldar and mart)