[Christ] is the breathing forth of the heart, life and spirit of God into all the dead race of Adam. He is the seeker, the finder, the restorer of all that, from Cain to the end of time, was lost and dead to the life of God. He is the love that prays for all its murderers; the love that willingly suffers and dies among thieves, that thieves may have a life with him in Paradise; the love that visits publicans, harlots and sinners, and wants and seeks to forgive where most is to be forgiven.
Redemption
Max Lucado
Does God guarantee the absence of struggle and the abundance of strength? Not in this life. But he does pledge to reweave your pain for a higher purpose.
Katherine Walden
April 11, 2020
Psalm 30:5 Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
This Easter Saturday, reflect on the dashed dreams and hopes of the disciples as they awoke the morning after Jesus’ death. Peter’s heart was crushed, for he denied the One he loved most. John tried to console an inconsolable Mary as he held the mother of the one who died a seemingly shame-filled, gruesome death. Other disciples cringed as they remembered their desperate dash into the night, abandoning Jesus. Others dealt with the death of their revolutionary dreams; Jesus wasn’t going to take the physical throne of Jerusalem, ousting their oppressors once and for all. Yes, it was a dark time for the disciples. However, It is only in the darkest of nights that the stars shine their brightest. Joy comes in the morning.
A W Tozer
If the tender yearning is gone from the advent hope today, there must be a reason for it; and I think I know what it is, or what they are, for there are a number of them. One is simply that popular fundamentalist theology has emphasized the utility of the cross rather than the beauty of the one who died on it. The saved man’s relation to Christ has been made contractual instead of personal. The “work” of Christ has been stressed until it has eclipsed the person of Christ. Substitution has been allowed to supersede identification. What he did for me seems to be more important than what He is to me. Redemption is seen as an across-the-counter transaction which we “accept”, and the whole thing lacks emotional content. We must love someone very much to stay awake and long for his coming, and that may explain the absence of power in the advent hope even among those who still believe in it.
Ed Stetzer
Nowhere is there a love that overcomes the barriers of death, sin, captivity, separation, fear, alienation, and purposelessness except at the Cross. There is hope for racial reconciliation, for peace between the sexes, for ethnic harmony, and for healing when we rally around a common identity in Christ, love him as our Redeemer, and serve his Kingdom.
David Garland
God’s grace does not mean that God benignly accepts humans in all their fallenness, forgives them, and then leaves them in that fallenness. God is in the business not of whitewashing sins but of transforming sinners.
Ed Silvoso
The cross is not a destination, but a doorway. It makes it possible to be seated with Christ in heavenly realms (see Ephesians 2:6) and to walk out the Gospel message in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is possible because the same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is now at work in us, so ours becomes a message of life—a life filled with power.
Silvoso, Ed. Ekklesia: Rediscovering God’s Instrument for Global Transformation (p. 110). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Bill Johnson
Mankind’s authority to rule was forfeited when Adam ate the forbidden fruit. Paul said, “You are that one’s slaves whom you obey” (Rom. 6:16). In that one act mankind became the slave and possession of the evil one. All that Adam owned, including the title deed to the planet with its corresponding position of rule, became part of the devil’s spoil. God’s predetermined plan of redemption immediately kicked into play, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). Jesus would come to reclaim all that was lost.
Paul David Tripp
Embedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others.
Katherine Walden
