04/04/2021 —
Jesus’s enemies sought to cancel Him on the first Good Friday. His death was the greatest example of love anyone has ever seen. But on Sunday, God displayed His awesome power – Jesus got up! The resurrection is the most important event in human history, and it should change us in multiple ways. He is not in the tomb – He is risen! Just as He said.


Mark 8:27-38

“Then Jesus and his disciples walked to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. On the way, he posed this question to his disciples: ‘Who do the people say that I am?’

“They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptizer, others say Elijah the prophet, and still others say you must be one of the prophets.’

“He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’

“Peter spoke up, saying, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!’

“Then he warned them not to breathe a word of this to anyone.

“From then on, Jesus began to tell his disciples that he, the Son of Man, was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer great injustice from the elders, leading priests, and religious scholars. He also explained that he would be killed and three days later be raised to life again. Jesus opened his heart and spoke freely with his disciples, explaining all these things to them.

“Then Peter took him aside and rebuked him. But Jesus turned around, and glancing at all of the other disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, ‘Get out of my sight, Satan! For your heart is not set on God’s plan but man’s!’

“Jesus had his disciples and the crowd gather around him. And he said to them: ‘If you truly want to follow me, you should at once completely disown your own life. And you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to my ways. For if you let your life go for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, you will continually experience true life. But if you choose to keep your life for yourself, you will forfeit what you try to keep. For what use is it to gain all the wealth and power of this world, with everything it could offer you, at the cost of your own life? And what could be more valuable to you than your own soul? If you are ashamed of me and my words while living among sinful and faithless people, then I, the Son of Man, will also be ashamed of you when I make my appearance with my holy messengers in the glorious splendor of my Father!’” (TPT).

 
Revelation 1:12-20

“When I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, I saw seven golden lampstands. And walking among the lampstands, I saw someone like a son of man, wearing a full-length robe with a golden sash over his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool—white as glistening snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire! His feet were gleaming like bright metal, as though they were glowing in a fire, and his voice was like the roar of many rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. And his face was shining like the brightness of the blinding sun! When I saw him, I fell down at his feet as good as dead, but he laid his right hand on me and I heard his reassuring voice saying: Don’t yield to fear. I am the Beginning and I am the End, the Living One! I was dead, but now look—I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys that unlock death and the unseen world. Now I want you to write what you have seen, what is, and what comes after the things that I reveal to you. The mystery of the lampstands and the seven stars is this: the seven lampstands are the seven churches, and the seven stars in my right hand are the seven messengers of the seven churches” (TPT).

• When Jesus told the disciples that He would be killed, He got their attention. He also told them that He would rise again after three days, but somehow that caught them by surprise. To this day, it still does.
• Just days earlier, on a day foretold by the angel Gabriel some 600 years earlier, He had entered Jerusalem in triumph. But He was crucified on a Friday – and the disciples’ dreams died with Him. The fickle tide of public opinion – the original cancel culture – had turned starkly against them. But God was about to display His power over sin and death, by raising His Son from the dead.
• Tragically we aren’t impacted by the resurrection of Jesus as we should be. If we truly grasped what actually happened that weekend, it would simply change everything forever.
• It would revolutionize the way we think. It would turn our priorities upside down, and cause us to “leave our nets” (our ideas and agendas) and follow Him, just as the disciples did.
• It would change the way we worship, moving us to forget convention, decorum and reservation. We would pour out every drop of adoration and adulation we could muster upon Heaven’s crown prince as we reflect on the price He paid to redeem us from the curses of poverty, sickness and sin.
• It would change the way we believe. It would inform and invigorate our faith with holy boldness. We could no longer abide status-quo Christianity, and we would flow in a current forever, contrary to anything and everything ordinary.
• It would change what we expect, filling us with confidence that God’s favor flows toward a swollen river called mercy. The atmosphere of expectancy is the breeding ground of miracles!
• It would change what we experience. We would contact a heavenly contagion and become carriers of a communicable disease called Holy Ghost power, with its symptoms of miracles, signs and wonders.
• It would change our witness, sweeping us into the highways and byways of this sin-sick culture proclaiming the Gospel of the Risen Christ and nations into revival as we rescue a generation, restore a nation and revitalize a civilization.
• It would change our view of eternity.