The cross is bare, the tomb is empty!
Satan has been defeated!
Now, it is up to us to take that personally!
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God’s love and God’s wrath! Two parts to the whole.
Christmas!
What’s the character of God that defines this world encompassing holiday? I’m sure God’s love comes immediately to the forefront. Christ’s physical entry onto the world scene was fraught with great danger and close calls. Yet, God’s love for humankind prevailed! Christ, as a man, grew up and successfully, powerfully fulfilled the purpose for which He had been born. As we study the sacrificial life of Christ, we get a sense of the extreme measures God’s love was willing to take on our behalf. Measures that would ensure our eternal and permanent home in heaven, after our temporary earthly life concluded.
But what concerns me is that as we become so wrapped up in the love God gave us in the Christ-child, we fail to move forward and even acknowledge the purpose for which Christ was born. By failing to embrace both the gift of God’s love and the purpose of the Cross, we venture into a world of deception and falsehood.
Therefore, we MUST come to terms with the fact that it was God’s wrath that was poured out upon Christ as He hung on that cross. Wrath that was meant for us! God cannot tolerate sin because He is God. Therefore, there was only one way that we could even hope for a personal relationship with Him and seal our permanent residence in heaven. Someone, who was without sin, would have to be willing to stand in our stead, take our place, endure God’s wrath. There was a price to be paid for our sin and Jesus paid it. For a moment in time, Jesus was willing to allow Himself to be separated from God. As human beings, I don’t think we can even begin to imagine the horror of that moment for Christ. But He endured the cross for us in order that we would never have to experience such horror.
We don’t talk much about God’s wrath, do we. But understand we place ourselves in great peril by avoiding to come to terms with the reality of God’s wrath. For there is no greater love than what was displayed on the cross where the wrath of God was poured out on Christ.
Yet, I wonder, if by overly focusing on just God’s love, without the balance of God’s wrath, could we miss heaven?
Choose Easter’s Victory
“He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” – Genesis 3:15
It’s important to remember Easter is ultimately a spiritual battle between Christ and Satan
When God created man and Satan tempted Adam and Eve, the great civil war between man’s spirit and flesh began. Then Christ came and as a man and as God, resisted Satan. Easter makes a way for us to resist Satan’s fiery darts. By accepting Christ’s death for ourselves, we can be assured that after our death, just like Christ, we will ascend to heaven.
As I grow older and move closer to my life’s end, the thrill of heaven, being with Jesus, becomes more intense. Therefore, I do not fear death. Nor should any believer.
You see that’s the victory we as Christians have over the plan of Satan’s to steal, kill, and destroy.
Satan’s plan to remove the influence of God’s Word and spending time with God in prayer, makes possible the fulfillment of his plan. Just look around at all the people in our country that see nothing wrong with abortion, homosexuality, divorce, or lying to gain an advantage, etc. When we remove what the Bible says about either of these, and have no personal relationship with God, Satan easily victimizes us. And you know what, we won’t even realize how we have been deceived and manipulated.
When the world accuses Christians for standing firm on these issues, we get accused of all sorts of hateful actions. And Satan will make sure that our accusers don’t open up their Bible. Why? Because he doesn’t want the world to know about God’s love, compassion, forgiveness, redemption of those involved with the sins I mentioned above.
Remember, if you ignore the Bible and prayer, you are easy prey to the enemy. He will lie to you with such skill, that you can become convinced that right is wrong and wrong is right.
This Easter, choose Christ. Choose victory. Defeat the enemy. Begin cooperating with God as He gives us the desire and power to do what pleases Him.
Refuse to allow ourselves to be manipulated, deceived, and blinded by Satan.
Satan has come to condemn us; Christ has come to restore us.
What Will We Believe?
I read in my devotion time recently the following:
“Evidence of Christ’s resurrection has been examined more carefully than evidence of any other fact in history. (The Word for you Today, March p. 19)” Yet, people continue to question this pivotal historical event.
More than once, authors have set out to write books that disprove Christ’s deity, existence, death, and His resurrection. Only to end up embracing and defending the very Christ they set out to disprove.
Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ
Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict
Dr. Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone
Lew Wallace, Ben Hur
So I ask you, why in the face of such evidence, men & women continue to reject or deny Christ’s deity, existence, death, and resurrection?
Scripture is clear in describing Satan’s plan in John 10:10a (HCSB), “A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.” So what is it that the Enemy desires to steal, kill, and destroy? The answer is obvious—anything God has planned for us! p. 13, FD’s 3rd edition
You see, Satan’s knows there is a God, he knows God sent Christ to redeem mankind, he knows Christ’ resurrection really happened!
He also knows that if we believe in God, confess our sins and accept Christ as our Savior, then when we die we will go to heaven for eternity–(see page 2 of this blog)
But Satan is jealous of God. He will do any and everything he can to keep mankind from discovering the Truth.
Satan takes full advantage of the struggle between the old nature (the flesh) and the new nature (God’s Spirit). His first attempt will be to weaken our new nature by tempting our old nature with distractions meant to diminish our desire to study the Bible or spend time with God in prayer. p. 46, FD’s 3rd edition
I see people, playing right into Satan’s hands! Human reasoning, false arguments, and rebellious thoughts, are fiery darts Satan uses to destroy and deceive mankind. But choosing God’s weapons can set mankind on a different course, if we will only learn how to use them.
We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
But we must make a choice. Will we believe God or Satan? Will we choose life or death?
What do you think of Easter?
In researching about Jesus and His fulfillment of the prophecies concerning Him, I came across this link and just had to share it with you!
Mathematically speaking, the odds of anyone fulfilling this amount of prophecy are staggering. Mathematicians put it this way:1 person fulfilling 8 prophecies: 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 1 person fulfilling 48 prophecies: 1 chance in 10 to the 157th power 1 person fulfilling 300+ prophecies: Only Jesus!
https://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/biblestudyandtheology/jesus_prophecy_fulfilled.aspx
With Sunday being Easter, there’s a lot of discussion going on about Jesus and if He is all that the Bible says He is. In a bible study years ago of the book of John, this same mathematical statement was made and affected me profoundly. It sort of anchors my thoughts concerning Jesus, especially in light of all the negative discourse that’s out there about Him.
Of course, Satan is just as active (maybe more so because his time is running out) in tempting believers to doubt Jesus and non-believers in completely discounting Jesus ever existed. It’s clearly easy to understand why non-believers could be so manipulated by Satan, but why is it that he is so successful in inducing such vulnerability in God’s army (you and me)?
. . .why is God’s army plagued with such a lack of boldness and courage and so easily disheartened and distracted? p. 1, FD
Repeatedly in my book, Fiery Darts: Satan’s Weapon of Choice, I state the answer to the above question:
. . . if he can keep you from consistent Bible study and prayer, then you will not possess the ability to recognize the lies of fiery darts and your thinking will be vulnerable to Satan’s manipulation. p. 61, FD
When these two disciplines, Bible study and prayer, are not practiced consistently in a Christian’s life, Satan’s fiery darts find an easy mark,. . . p. 63, FD
Have you been an easy mark for Satan? Do you find it easier to talk to others about anything other than Jesus? Do you find yourself expressing more passion for your favorite sport or movie than you do Jesus?
Is Easter just an excuse for buying a new outfit? Is Easter one of the two times a year you feel the pull (thank goodness there is still some pulling) to attend church? How does the Easter story of colored eggs and chocolate bunnies compare to the Easter message of Jesus that you tell your children?
REMEMBER:
The first half of John 10:10 reveals Satan’s intentions toward mankind, “A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.” p. 6, FD
Fiery Darts: Satan's Weapon of Choice 