Let us take some time this year to reflect on what Easter means to us personally. Despite worldly influences to commercialize yet another holiday, the historic event of Jesus' death and resurrection actually did occur. And it is worth mentioning that this event wasn't chosen by us as an after-the-fact date that we would use as a spiritual icon for the basis of our faith. This event was chosen by God and prophesied years prior, and by Jesus ahead of time. God allowed this to be the event required to bridge the gap between Him and man. In His death, the impossible became possible; the hopeless found hope; the condemned were pardoned; mankind found eternal life. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Cor. 9: 15) We can now be forgiven and be looked upon by God as righteous, covered by Jesus' blood and the awesome sacrificial gift of His life for ours.
Now, we could never repay Him in return, but as we grow to believe more and more in maturity and allow the Holy spirit to rule our hearts and minds, we will want to reciprocate by responding out of thankfulness. We will want to have success in ridding ourselves of all things that injure our fellowship with Him and anything else that He doesn't want for us to participate in: "sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language" (Col. 3: 1-8)
These remain major men's issues of our times and, therefore, must be dealt with. As we open the doors to our next study, "Maximized Manhood" by Ed Cole, we invite everyone to attack these issues with fervor in a determined effort to breakdown Satan's strongholds on us, and maximize our potential to step into life as real men before God.
Happy Easter everybody! It is my hope that everyone will have more and more "Easter" reflections this coming year. Let it be our motivation to respond appropriately to the One who gave it all for us.
