Monday, April 1, 2013

What just happened?


1 Corinthians 15:1-11

          The Lenten Journey is one you may or may not have embraced. Certainly Easter has the power to transform us, illuminate our life, to help us realize the power of Gods' saving grace and love in our life.  Of course it could simply be attendance at an obligatory service that means virtually nothing to you. If someone died for me, just for me, I think it should hold some sway in how I act and how I live from now on. So what just happened? Jesus died a miserable death, saved you and me and rose again to give us hope for now and for eternity.

           Paul was not a likely candidate to be a Christian. Far from it, he persecuted them but there is always the possibility of starting over, staring anew and that is a message that is central to Jesus' message and of his rising.

           The least likely candidate, perhaps that's you, perhaps that's what you've been told all your life, perhaps since coming out, well you are the saved one, the beloved one in Jesus' eyes. You may feel like the least, to God you are the most.

          What just happened? You have been told (shown) that you are the best by Jesus and you have a a chance at a new beginning, a fresh start, every day. Don't waste it.  


Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

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