E256 - Faith, Hope, Love

Greetings earthlings! \/ (errr if you understand what I'm trying to portray).

TODAY IS EASTER!

Okay, I tried to combine the 2 easter sermons...

Luke 23:32-34
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”
When Jesus was saying this, He was referring to your sins and my sins that nailed Him to the cross. Jesus died of a broken heart because of the sins of the whole world, but yet He still asked of the Father forgive us!

We will never understand what Jesus has really done, until we really put ourselves in His position. His closest friends, His family, His followers, His disciples, people whom He gave His heart to ran away in his greatest moment of need. One can only imagine how painful that really was.

How did He manage to take all that as man?

Amazing love. For who? For us!

Because of what He has undergone to forgive us, is there really anything too hard for us to forgive! :)

Hebrews 12:1-2
Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Shame is fear-based and it makes us believe, wrongly, that we are unworthy and unloved.

Shame robs us of the motivation to seek care (the joy of living), causes us to be shut down emotionally and become a relational cripple, it causes us to have anger, hostility and unforgiveness in our hearts, it causes psychological problems and problematic moral behaviours.

But because Jesus has accepted all our emotional rejections, our physical and emotional abuses, we can can be free from all that! In Him, we can find back our joy of living, we can enjoy healthy relationship, we can forgive and forget!

Isaiah 53:3-5
He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.