WE HAVE TO DIE TO LIVE.

WE HAVE TO DIE TO LIVE.

 

This is the theme for Easter. We are following Jesus from He was riding on a donkey into Jerusalem. A huge crowd was following Him and they honoured Him by laying branches on the street where He came. Jesus was sharing the Easter meal with His disciples and that was when He also established the Communion. Then the real battled started. They were supposed to be a night in Gethsemane to pray, but the disciples fell asleep, but Jesus was praying so hard that He was sweating blood. He rebuked the disciples for falling asleep. They didn’t understand the seriousness of what was coming. One of the most important events in history was about to happen.

While they were there, Judas, the disciple that was supposed to betray Him came and kissed Him showing the crowd from the high priest and the elders that this was Jesus. The crowd had swords with them. Jesus was taken to the house of the high Priest and there Peter denied the fact that he knew Jesus three times, exactly as Jesus has prophesized.

Jesus was taken from one authority to another authority, and it was finally the roman Pilate that ordered Him to be crucified even if he thought that Jesus was innocent. The crowd was so strong crying crucify that he didn’t dare to listen to his own conscience. Pilate was supposed to give a prisoner freedom at Easter and the crowd cried out Barabbas. Jesus was crucified, but then a darkness covered the earth for three hours and the veil of the temple was torn in two. Jesus was crying out: “Father, Father, why have you forsaken Me?” Jesus died on the Cross and the people around Him got afraid when they saw everything that happened. He must be the Son of God.

Jesus was put in a tomb and the opening was covered with a huge stone. Jesus had prophesized about His resurrection and on the third day Mary Magdalene and another Mary came to the where He was buried. There was an earthquake, and the stone was rolled away and an angel came down from heaven telling them that Jesus was not there. He was risen. Jesus came to them, and they kissed His feet. They ran to the disciples and told them, but they did not believe them, but Peter ran to the tomb and saw that it was empty. Enormous powers of nature had been active both when Jesus was hanging on the tree and when the tomb was opened.

Jesus had become the Saviour of the world. He had opened a living blood-way to the Father for everybody to walk on if they accepted what Jesus did for them. That way had been closed after the sins of Adam and Eve. I do not think that we understand the length and the depth of what Jesus did on the Cross when He reconciled us with His Father. Jesus had become the only sinless lamb.

I want to quote some words from Galatians 2:19: “For I trough the law, deid to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

I recently heard a sermon saying that revival had not come because we were not dead enough. So much of our lives circled around ourselves. We might even do that when we talk about my ministry and my gifts. The churches plan programmes and activities, but we all need to die to ourselves in a healthy way.  We must remember that Jesus lives on the inside of us, and He is, and He has everything that we need.

After this sermon about dying, I heard a sermon saying that Jesus is like a nuclear bomb on our inside. The Word says that noting is impossible for God nor for us believing on Him. So many identify with their limitations instead of with Him saying everything is possible. The message of Easter is quite serious, but it gives hope since I now can come to God sinless and with a possibility to get rid of my sicknesses and to have everlasting peace and life.

       Read Isaiah 53:4+5 and hold on to that Scripture during Easter.

 The Holy Spirit has promised to give us power to witness about Jesus. It can also anoint us to preach the glad tidings about Him. We are anointed to lay hands on the sick and to drive out demons and these things we ca do because of Him who lives on the inside of us. We can have victory because of the blood of Jesus and the word of our mouth. (Revelation 12:11)

The daily process to die to ourselves should not be a process of mourning and sadness. It should lead to peach, joy and happiness. Jesus would be in the centre of our lives then.

BE WILLING TO DIE TO LIVE!

Mother Else