What Will You Do With Jesus This Easter?

by Kevin Burton

    The credentials of Jesus, and your response.

   If you boil it all down isn’t that life in a nutshell, the answer to the 60s question, “what’s it all about Alfie?”

   The Bible says Jesus is the son of God, that He came to earth in the form of a man, lived a sinless life and died a substitutionary death to save humanity, a hopelessly lost race.

   Save us from what? Save us from eternal separation from God, from damnation, the punishment due to us as disobedient sinners.

   This is serious business. In the time since you began reading this post, thousands of people entered eternity. The Bible says there are two, permanent, destinations for humans after death: Heaven and Hell.

   The Bible also says Jesus rose from the dead to “seal the deal,” to make it possible for us, through faith in Him, to enter Heaven and be there with Him forever.

   Today we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and call the day Easter. This is where Jesus established his credentials as Savior.

   The evidence for God, the resurrection of Jesus and the Bible as a whole is everywhere, in print and in God’s creation.

   “The Grave Is Empty!  Christ has risen!  What does it mean?” writes Pastor Dane Massey. “The greatest event in human history and the apex of God’s redemptive work.  The Truth that has been derided, assailed, disputed, doubted and lied about for more than 2,000 years has never been disproved.  More than 500 eyewitnesses and not one ever recanted.”

   “The Resurrection stands as the vindication of Christ, His Deity, His Righteousness and the Truth of Every Word He Spoke,” Massey wrote “It stands as the Validation of His Sacrifice on the Cross for Sinners. That it was Complete, Sufficient, and Finished!  He was and is the Propitiation for our Sins!  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World.”

   Friend, what today, is your response?

   Please forget about colored eggs and bunnies. Please forget that some pagans grabbed hold of the term “Easter” and polluted it. You can’t afford to waste time on that junk.

   Your eternal life is on the line, now.

   We talk about faith and our minds go to “religion,” but it may be helpful here to talk about faith in academic terms. You can’t live a human life without faith of some kind.

   You have faith in the chair you sit in, that it won’t collapse and deposit you on the floor.. From there our discussions of faith rise from the mundane to much weightier matters and finally to the eternal question.  

   That’s why it is essential that we not duck, or delay, answering the question, “What about Jesus?”

   “What we think about God and our relationship to Him determines what we think about everything else that makes up our busy world – other people, the universe, God’s Word, God will, sin, faith and obedience,” wrote the late pastor Warren Wiersbe. His comments appear in his commentary, in a section about Psalm 139. But they apply across the board.

   “Wrong ideas about God will ultimately result in wrong ideas about who we are and what we should do, and this leads to a wrong life on the wrong path toward the wrong destiny,” Wiersbe wrote.

   “In other words, theology – the right knowledge of God – is essential to a fulfilled life in this world” Wiersbe wrote, and may I add, in the next world as well.    

   The resurrection is an essential part of that right knowledge of God.

    “If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said?” wrote pastor Tim Keller. “The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

   “For thousands of years of history this planet was nothing but a grave yard.  Every advancement ended with a tomb.  Within days after creation sin entered and death by sin so that death passed upon all men,” Massey wrote. “Genesis closes with a coffin and the Old Testament with a curse but the New Testament Lives with Resurrection Life! 

   “The Empty Tomb is God’s answer to questions in Ecclesiastes:

    “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-4)

Gods answer:

    “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

    “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

      “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 15:54-58).”