What is the most important day of the year?

​Easter Sunday is the most important day of the year for you and me. Everything we believe and share hinges on this day. Everything I have ever shared is based on this Easter! See for yourself!

Resurrection Sunday is the central event in the church year-the climax of worship, expectation, and celebration. This celebration is also a decisive test of the Church's faithfulness and conviction.

The secular world has done its best to make a mess of Easter; it has ignored our celebration of the Resurrection. Where commercialism intrudes, it comes in the form of eggs, chicks, and rabbits - none of which claim any connection with the Resurrection. The fact is, the secular world will attempt to domesticate, commercialize, and tame the babe in the manger, but it will run at breakneck speed from the cross and the empty tomb.

That Cross stands as a condemnation of all human attempts at self-righteousness, and the fallen world will do all within its power to hide the cross from sight. The Empty Tomb is the seal and confirmation of the cross, and the world will shield its eyes.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead separates Christianity from all mere religion, whatever its form. Christianity without the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is merely one religion among many.

Millions and millions of Christians around the world celebrate Easter every year. But for far too many of us, the story has become boring and rote. These are the basic facts below. Jesus was arrested. He was crucified. And three days later, God raised him from the dead.

Yet we miss something particularly important. We miss what turns Easter from a one-dimensional holiday to a multi-dimensional, life-transforming way of life.

Easter is the Good News about God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came as a human baby, born into King David’s royal family line. Four historical records say he showed himself to five hundred people at one gathering. Can you imagine witnessing his death and then seeing him walking around Jerusalem three days later? What an amazing thing! When Jesus was hanging on the cross, the skeptics and critics mocked him and in effect said, if you are the Son of God, why don’t you just pull yourself down from that cross? Why don’t you just come down and show that you are really God? Jesus had something more spectacular planned. He said, “I am going to let you bury me for three days, then I will come back to life to prove that I am what I am.”

We miss that the story of the Resurrection is not just Jesus’ story- it is our story as well. You see, you are a part of the Resurrection. Jesus’ death and Resurrection did not just prove there was life after death. The Resurrection proves you can have life after death, that there’s life beyond your grave.

What does this mean to us today? In one sense, Jesus Christ is still on trial. He is on trial in the heart and mind of every person who has not yet acknowledged him as the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

What is your verdict? You see, Easter really boils down to only two issues. 

• One, is Jesus who he says he is? Is he God? Or is he a lunatic or a liar?
• Two, if he is who he says he is, when are you going to start following what he says to do with your life?

After Jesus died, they took his body down and put him in the tomb, and a giant millstone was set in front of the cave. The religious leaders, who were worried that Jesus’ body might be stolen, asked for Roman guards to be posted in front of the tomb. They did not want him to come out! But of course, he did. (Praise the Lord!)

Do you know the story? But it is important to remember that Easter is not some memorial to a nice, good religious teacher who lived over 2,000 years ago. It is a celebration of the fact that he is alive today. I am living proof — and so are the billions of Christians who will celebrate Easter this weekend.

“By being raised from the dead he was proved to be the mighty Son of God, with the holy nature of God himself” - Romans 1:4 TLB.

Jesus says, if you trust in him, death becomes a transition, not an ending point. One day, your heart will stop. That will be the end of your body. But it will not be the end of you. God made you to last forever. That is why you often have a feeling that there is more to life than this. Jesus made this amazing promise in John 11:25-26 NIV, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

That is quite a promise! Jesus proved he could do it by resurrecting himself. Otherwise, we would have no reason to believe it. If Jesus had not died on the cross and been resurrected more than 2,000 years ago, you would have zero chance of getting to Heaven — no hope of the afterlife and no eternal life.

The Bible says, “By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also” (1 Corinthians 6:14 NIV).

As Easter comes our way this year, that is a truth to hang our lives upon. It is great news that Jesus rose from the dead. But what turns that truth from black and white to living color is that one day, if you trust in him, he will raise you from the grave, too.
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That is the promise of Easter.

Make Every Day Count!

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