Easter Inspiration, Part 1: From the Archives
If you aren’t on social media, you might have missed these articles from the archives I’ve posted there. The message in each of these articles has meant a lot to me—and is perfect for Easter—so I thought I’d share a few excerpts with you today.
- The Resurrected Life
- The Confrontational Language of the Cross
- The Fellowship of the Cross: The Deepest Secret of Pentecost
The Resurrected Life
This is an Easter message birthed in years of indescribable suffering. It contains hope and comfort for our daily lives—for trials both great and small.
As we prepare our hearts to celebrate Easter and the Resurrected Life we now enjoy in Christ, I would like to share a word that the Holy Spirit has been whispering to my own heart.
It’s a word that I believe will bless and strengthen your own heart — and it comes from John 12 ….
This may not be a passage we usually hear preached about at Easter — but it is so incredibly filled with God’s grace and comfort for our everyday lives….
Let’s look together at this amazing portion of God’s Word.
• “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23)
Jesus had an appointed time of suffering — and God also allows adversity into our lives at His appointed times. (Tweet)
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• “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” (John 12:26) (Tweet)
Imagine — Jesus spoke these words only a matter of days, even hours, before His crucifixion! “Whoever serves me must follow me …” (Tweet)
Wow! We often claim we want to serve him — that we want to follow Him … and we do … just not to the cross.
Like the crowds and Jesus’ disciples, we want to experience His miracles and be fed by Him — but just how far are we willing to follow Him? To the cross? Remember — “Where I am, my servant also will be.” (Tweet)
• “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27-28)
o First — We shouldn’t be worried and restless about our seasons of suffering. It was for this very reason we came to this hour. (Tweet) And what is the reason? To have ourselves — our old nature — removed and replaced with the life of Christ … so that He might live through us and bring about a spiritual harvest in us, as well as in those around us! (Tweet)
o Second — “Father, glorify Your name!” When we yield to God in our trials, God makes Himself recognizable to others through our lives. (Tweet) Through our trials, God fulfills the promises He’s made to us. The world sees God doing what He said He’d do — and they’re astounded. Glory is brought to His name!
That powerful passage really sums up the life of a Christ-follower, doesn’t it? If you and I can hear this word and act on it — God will truly be glorified!
To be sure, taking up our cross and following Jesus isn’t always popular or easy. But God relates to us on resurrection ground, and this ground always includes the cross. (Tweet)
As we alluded to earlier, we want His resurrection power—but only if we can bypass the cross. But it just will not happen that way … (Tweet)
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Remember that once we’ve given our crosses — our trials — to God and submitted to the control of His Holy Spirit, we experience the great exchange of the cross. (Tweet) The riches of Jesus Christ that we receive in return for our old self far exceed the spiritual poverty in which we lived before. Once we ever experience them, we’re changed. We’ll follow Jesus anywhere — even to the cross — if it means that more of His Resurrected Life will inhabit us.
Consider these incredible words of the apostle Paul …
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake
of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared
to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish,
that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:7-8)We may be willing to follow Jesus to conferences across the nation, to Bible studies—even down the aisles of our churches. But the place that matters most is the cross. The cross is the ground upon which God relates to us. (Tweet)
The Confrontational Language of the Cross (Mini-Post)
This post includes one of my favorite quotes from When Heaven is Silent by Ron Dunn.
In our attempt to win the world by impressing the world, we have abandoned the confrontational language of the cross for the wooing language of power, might, success, and winning. The true power of our faith is power that the world calls weakness, and the victory of our faith is victory that the world calls failure. The Christ we profess to follow was made “perfect through suffering.” [Heb. 2:10] We prefer to be made perfect through success. But grace will not do for us what it did not do for Christ—exempt us from suffering.
– Ron Dunn, When Heaven Is Silent
The Fellowship of the Cross: The Deepest Secret of Pentecost
Andrew Murray writes:
The Cross is Christ’s highest glory. The Holy Spirit neither has done nor can do anything greater or more glorious than He did when He empowered Jesus to go to that cross: “Christ…through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Heb. 9:14). In the same way, the Holy Spirit can do nothing greater or more glorious for us than to take us up into the fellowship of that Cross, and to work in us the same spirit of the Cross that was seen in our Lord Jesus. In a word, the question arose whether this was not the real reason why our prayers for the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit could not be answered, because we had sought too little to receive the Spirit, in order that we might know and become like the glorified Christ in the fellowship of His Cross.
Is this not the deepest secret of Pentecost?
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How foolish it is to pray for the fullness of the Spirit if we have not first placed ourselves under the full power of the Cross!…What is it that hinders? The Father…is more willing than any earthly father to give bread to His child, and yet the cry arises, ‘Is the Spirit restricted?’ Many will acknowledge that the hindrance undoubtedly lies in the fact that the church is too much under the sway of the flesh and the world. They understand too little of the heart-piercing power of the Cross of Christ. So it comes to pass that the Spirit does not have the vessels into which He can pour His fullness.”
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