Bring your performance anxiety to Me, and receive in its place My unfailing Love. Try to stay conscious of My loving Presence with you in all that you do, and I will direct your steps. ~ Jesus Calling
What a wonderful thought, knowing that God loves us no matter what. I taught my children that as well as my SS students. God does love us no matter what we do. We may do something that disappoints Him, but he never stops loving us. He gives us the tools to do what is right, to be good and kind and is most pleased when we do those things out of habit and character and not obligation. He is most pleased we we do something that could be considered "good" or "righteous" without boasting, or looking for acknowledgment. He wants us to do those things, on a daily basis even. He just wants us to do them without thinking about a reward of some sort. If we are doing things out of love and genuine kindness on a daily basis, when we do those things with Him in mind, we shine as an extension of His light. The word says we are made in His likeness, we are clothed in His righteousness. So, if we call ourselves a Christian, a Child of God and we behave in a certain way that is not what would be Christ-like, then what are we showing the world.
I was teaching my SS class just this past Sunday, I teach 1st-3rd graders and we were talking about how we are treat others. I told them about the bracelets my own kids used to wear WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) as well as many adults. I explained what the letters meant and although they thought it was a pretty neat idea, they had never seen one. Perhaps, we need to dig through our closets and drawers and see if we still have one or two lying around. Im sure they would be easy enough to make/sell again. What would your day look like if you wore a WWJD bracelet for just a week, and when those tough moments came along, you stopped and thought about that question... WWJD?
As I sit here on the morning after his death, awaiting his resurrection on Easter morning, I am very soberly reminded of what He did, for you, me, the entire world. His death on the cross isn't easy to understand or envision. But with His great sacrifice of self, we have been saved from so much despair and ugliness that will come with living a life without know Him as our Savior, with dying and not having declared His as the Savior of our heart. It's never to late to pick up our lives and change, to do what;s right, to be like Jesus. To simply ask for forgiveness... Look at the thief on the cross, he was dying. Dying, and yet he spoke to our Savior and asked to be forgiven. And in one of the last things He would do before His death, Jesus forgave this man, this common thief and promised to him that he would live in the paradise that Jesus Himself was going to. How amazing is that? I have had an odd sort of connection to that part of the story for years now, as one Easter I played that thief's sister in a drama that was performed at the church I was attending. It has been years, but one of the lines was something like: "He forgave him and told him he would live in paradise with Him, my brother has been saved." It just opened a very pivotal part of the story that a lot of people may not be aware of. We know the basics (which are great) He was murdered, buried and rose back to life. But the moments like these with this common thief, or Joseph, friend of Nicodemus asking for His Lord's body, so that he could give Him a proper burial. As most well know, Nicodemus, as well as Joseph had not known Jesus as Savior for very long, yet He had impacted their lives and they were in significant pain while they mourned.
What joy and happiness, as well as triumph must have been experienced by the disciples and friends of our Lord upon learning of His resurrection! I'm sure the words of the Bible don't really hold justice to the emotions that must have spilled out from them that day. Imagine getting a few more moments with someone you love, what would you do? What would you say? Those men and women had 40 days, to listen and soak up all that Jesus had to share with them, to teach them about His Father and what they were meant to do after he left. Building the early churches, speaking to others about actually having know Christ, to call him friend. I realize we too, can call Jesus friend. Oh, but to be a disciple, or Mary or Martha, or some of the other few people who were directly involved with Him when He walked this earth... those are the people I want to sit with in Heaven and talk to and ask them hundreds of questions. As I type this, I chuckle to myself because I have heard a time or two, that we can have all these questions we want to ask when we arrive in Heaven, people we may want to talk to, loved ones we will be oh so excited to see. Yet, the glory of it all, the true majesty that Heaven will be... we will forget, those things won't even matter. We will simply be able to begin our life of eternity with the Living God whom we have faithfully served while walking the earth.
So I leave you with this simple prayer:
Lord, we thank you so much for loving us unconditionally, for covering us with your light and love, allowing us to shine for all to see. May your goodness, kindness and righteous be seen in us by all those around us. And as we walk through each day, tempted and given tough choices to make, may we turn to you for guidance, may we take that half a second to think... WWJD? Thank you for being the ultimate gift and sacrificing yourself by dying on the cross. Thank you Lord for rising again so that we can serve you as our living God. Amen
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