I took my granddaughter to the park. She is an only child and loves to get a chance to play with other kids. She picks out a playmate and addresses him or her as “friend” all afternoon. She is….of course…..absolutely adorable.

This afternoon was unusual. There was a birthday party. All of the kids there were mentally handicapped.  I met a guy named Gary. We tried to have a conversation but it was tough. His handicap was pretty severe. He kept trying to tell me something about a broken TV. It sounded like he broke it and needed to get to Best Buy.

I am getting old and am starting to notice physical limitations myself. Pretty much everybody in my family has one handicap or another. The scene got me thinking about paradise and the promise of eternity with a “perfected” body. Eternal youth, no aches, no pains, no glasses……plenty of hair. Up until today, my vision of our bodies in paradise has been focused on my “perfected body” and how great it will be to be able to run again, to see clearly, sleep soundly, and to hear well. My vision of paradise has pretty much been focused on me.

But then it occurred to me. Gary will have a perfected body too. Gary will have a normal mind. He will be able to tell me his name, walk normally, play and work…….he won’t drool anymore. He will be able to tell a joke…….and enjoy one. The human being who has been locked up inside of a broken mind for a lifetime will be set free.

I want to live my life in such a manner that I can be sure that when Gary gets to paradise he will remember me as somebody who treated him with dignity and respect while he was trapped…..in a broken body……here in this world.

My challenge today is for all of us to treat the weakest, the most marginalized members of our community, those who cannot speak for themselves with dignity and respect…….and this includes the unborn………..so that when we meet them in paradise they will greet us with a hug……..and say “do you remember the day when you sat down and had a conversation with a guy who was broken…….a guy who was pretty much helpless, a guy who could offer you nothing?

I want to be worthy to be Gary’s friend in paradise.

We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting ?”

Paul,  NIV

I recently heard a speaker, I’m not really sure where. He said “Don’t ever pray for justice.” I went back to my morning prayer list…….and there it was……a prayer for justice. My first reaction was that this guy is nuts………justice is a good thing…….a great goal. But then I thought about it for a bit. I realized that when I pray for “justice” what I am usually praying is for something good for me……….and a lightning bolt for the other guy. What I am praying for is my brand of justice……reward for me and revenge against the other guy. God’s will……..God’s justice is far from my mind.

If we make an honest searching inventory of the bad things that we have done……..and that would include every act in our lives that wasn’t love centered……..we would have to conclude that if there was true justice…….God’s justice, each of us would have been reduced to a smoking smudge on the turf a long time ago.

But, you say, I’ve done a lot of good. On average, if you add it all up, I’m a pretty good person…….and I’m way better than (fill in the blank). The trouble is that when you talk about justice, the good thing that you did last week won’t get you out of today’s speeding ticket. The fact that you were just passed by somebody going even faster won’t help either. In a completely just world, each act is rewarded or punished on it’s own merits. Each act is weighed on God’s spectrum of righteousness……..and that means that we are in big trouble. We just aren’t ready for justice……..and we never will be. The speaker was right. If we pray for justice…..and God if answers that prayer…….then there will be nothing left but a couple of billion little scorched spots.

I dropped the prayer for justice from my prayer list. In its place, I am reminded of the “Prayer of Jabez”

“bless me indeed and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from the evil one”

Jabez, NIV

This is, at its heart, a prayer for blessing and for mercy.

So instead of praying for justice, I added a prayer for mercy. This changes the entire focus of the prayer……..now rather that praying for God to zap the other guy for his misdeeds, I am praying for God to forgive me for mine. I am still trying to level the field; not by taking down the other guy but rather by changing my behaviour. I am focusing on improving myself rather than wrecking the other guy. This seems a lot more in line with the command to love others.

Focus not on punishment for the other guy but on forgiveness for yourself.

Focus not on the crimes of others but rather on your own failures. After all the only thing that you can control…….is what you do.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Paul, NIV

I’m getting old.

You may not be old………..yet. But, you are certainly older than you were last week. This is one of the greatest truths…..one of the most pressing realities of our lives. Yet, oddly, we give it little thought. This is probably because of where it leads……..physical deterioration and death.

We live in a society that worships youth. When the TV wants to sell you something, they show you somebody 45 or younger enjoying it. Have you ever seen a soap commercial featuring an 85 year old in a wheelchair? Have you ever seen, on TV, an 85 year old in a wheelchair enjoying anything? 85 doesn’t look like any fun at all………if the TV is telling us the truth. And yet, old is where we are headed…….all of us. The only way to avoid 85………is to die young……….swell. A famous musician summed it up pretty well when he said, “Nobody gets out alive”.

Our culture’s solution to this “unhappy ending” is surprising in its simplicity………we ignore it. “Eat, drink, and be merry…….” But, generally speaking, ignoring the truth is not a good plan. I once went to a surgeon to get something fixed. In the course of our conversation, he said,

“You’re going to get old, and you’re going to die, and it’s going to be ugly”.

That was uplifting……….and yet every word was true.

So……..how do I get up and face the day………face my future……..face 85 in a wheelchair? Well, I start out slowly. I let the stiffness and the dizziness settle down. Then I sit up, put my feet on the floor and get going.

I look a little further ahead than my TV does. I look out of my back window at this amazing beautiful world. I consider how it came to be.The most popular explanation of the world today is Darwinism. Boiled down, Darwin tells us that everything we see is just an accident……actually trillions upon trillions of consecutive, additive, positively adaptive accidents. The trouble with Darwin is that I’ve seen enough accidents to know that after an accident, things get worse not better….things become more random, not more organized. Darwinism is a little like believing that the way to improve your old car is to plow it into a tree. (OK, that was cheap……the car isn’t alive so Darwin doesn’t apply).

So, I choose a less popular world view…….intelligent design. This tells me that behind it all is a creative intelligence. I think that the best candidate for this intelligence is God/Jesus/Spirit……a benevolent creator who cares for me personally. This is good and bad (from a secular perspective). The creator promises life after old age……after 85 in a wheelchair……after death. But, the creator also has expectations of us…….expectations of me………before 85. This world view is humbling because we are moved down the chain of command from the greatest intellect in the cosmos to a fairly small cog in a very large machine. We are not in charge. And we, as humans, do not like the whole humble thing. We like believing that we are in charge. Even though…….by any measure……..we have made a mess of things.

So, how do I face my day……today…….at 65? I take the long view. I look ahead to paradise where I get to spend time with the guy who made me………to spend time with friends and family. I accept that while 85 in a wheelchair is going to be a temporary setback…….there is something much better ahead. I am not clear on all of the details, but I suspect that it will involve friends, a satisfying job, and a body that works the way God intended it to. Until then, I will focus on living up to my creator’s expectations of me………today.

His expectations? Pretty simple.

Love

Love God and love my fellow man. That should keep me busy……..for the next 20 years or so.

“Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied:  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus, NIV

We hate to admit it.

But, we are, by nature, followers……we are sheep.

There are very few true leaders out there. The funny part of this is that we don’t realize this basic truth in our lives. We each like to believe that we are independent thinkers, the captain of our fate. But…..for better or worse…….this is just not true. For almost all of us there is a single idea, person, or thing that we follow. We tell ourselves that we have chosen our leader because the person, thing, or idea is somehow good. But, the truth is that we will follow even when our leader, our boss, is clearly doing something bad. The further along we go, the more rigid we become. We stop hearing anybody but our boss. We discard any idea that the boss doesn’t like. We only watch Fox news…..or CNN. This is how people who are fundamentally good and smart wind up in a crowd following someone who is clearly evil……..think Hitler. FWIW this post is not about Trump and Pelosi. I don’t want you to focus on the “evil” person or idea that the other guy is following……..I want you to critically examine the boss whom you are following. Most of us have never done this. For most of us, we live our lives walking down a path that has been laid out by another. A great many of us get to the end of that path and ask “how in the world did I wind up here?” It’s pretty simple……you got “here” because the boss you were following led you here…… and he did it for his, her, or its purpose. In order to avoid future disappointment or worse……..you need to know who is leading you……you need to have an idea of where they are taking you.

So who…..or what …….are you following?

Here are some candidates:

The Republican party
The Democratic party
Your job
Addiction
Money
Status
Fame
Hatred
Pleasure
Fitness
God
Satan

It can be surprisingly difficult to know who is at the head of the line you are in. Fact is, most of us have never even looked onto it. But, rest assured, as long as you stay in line, you will wind up exactly where THEY want you to go.

The best way to know whom you are following is to examine the forks in your path. Look back at choices that you have made…..especially grey zone choices. You might even make a list. Look down the list and ask what authority informed your choice. Why did you make the decision that you made?

Here are examples of “forks in the road”:

Who did you marry?

What job did you take?

Who did you vote for?

The last lie that you told

Your last act of kindness

The last thing that you did or didn’t steal (ever heard of the “use tax”…….its the sales tax that you are supposed to pay on things you order on the internet…….and that you probably don’t report on your state income tax form)

Last Sunday……..did you relax with your family…..or work

Are gun control and abortion right or wrong?

Look at these decisions. In particular, consider the ones that made you just a little uncomfortable. Those are the forks where you followed the boss…….and they are the key to your leader’s identity.

Once you have identified your leader, then you can get an idea of what destination he has chosen…….for you. Then, you can decide if that is the destination that you would choose.

If you don’t like what you see…….watch for the next fork in the road. Decide based on a new leader. The old leader will tug at you, but at each subsequent fork, choosing the new path……following your new leader will get easier.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God, NIV

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—  just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

Jesus, NIV

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus, NIV

Christians and secular humanists butt heads all of the time. Abortion, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, LGBT issues…….you name it…….we probably disagree about it. The gap between us is wide and seems to be getting wider.

If you trace this gap back to the basics, it seems like the heart of it comes down to our understanding of what “life” is.

So, what do we mean when we talk about life…….in particular our life…….my life?

To the secular humanist, our life is the time from birth to death. Everything fits into this span of time. We look at our life experiences and they are rich and colorful. Life is long and full and beautiful. There is nothing meaningful before our birth or after our death. Others lived before us and others will live after us, but; in a very real sense, their lives are theirs…….and they are irrelevant to us. We have about 80 years to do it all……to experience it all. 80 years is a lot of time but we have a lot to experience. So…..we each develop a code that we live by and we design that code, that set of rules, to maximize the quality of our 80 years. We do contribute to our families and to a lesser extent to the communities that will outlive us, but these are secondary. The further removed they are from our 80 years, the less attention they receive. If you don’t believe this……look at where you spend your money. This is the reason why global warming just hasn’t gained much traction……even among secular humanists. Our secular code tells us, “eat, drink, and be merry…….for tomorrow you will die”. And that code works very well…….for our 80 years. That is the primary meaning of life for the secular humanist.

To the Christian, life has a very different meaning……even though most Christians don’t give this a lot of thought. In fact, most Christians spend most of their time living as though they were secular humanists. In a word, we spend six days and change as secular humanists and then become Christians for a few hours on Sunday. If you really think about it, life, for a Christian, has 3 phases……..eternity past, this world, and eternity future. We know a little about history but, eternity past is largely hidden. We know more about eternity future from the Bible; but, realistically, our vision of eternity future is a little foggy too. The one thing that I can say with certainty is that our 80 years in this world is a tiny sliver of time wedged between these two eternities. Our life seems very important from where we stand today; but, if you back off and look at the big picture, our 80 years here is extremely short……….and inconsequential. This can be sad or joyous.

It all hinges on what eternity future looks like.

As Christians we are given 2 visions of eternity future…….”paradise future”……..and “not paradise future”. As I said before, the descriptions that we have are a bit foggy. I tend to think of these as “nice eternity” and “not nice eternity”. There is little value in speculating about the details…….will there be a Starbucks? BUT……..eternity is a long time……and “nice” is better than “not nice”. And, as it turns out, the choice between “nice eternity” and “not nice eternity”………..is entirely up to us. Accepting Christ gets you “nice eternity”, denying him gets you “not nice eternity”. This is true regardless of whether you are a Christian or a secular humanist.

So……..back to the original question………..what is the meaning of life? Why does God bother with our tiny sliver of time? What are we supposed to do with our 80 years? I believe that we are here primarily for one purpose……..to decide……to accept Christ or to deny him……in a word, to choose between “nice eternity” and “not nice eternity”. Everything that enters and leaves your life is there to shape that decision: your wife’s laughter, your marriage, your granddaughter’s hug, addiction, your cancer, the death of your child. All of it…..good or bad………it all shapes you……it all contributes to your decision. We all respond differently to our world. Maybe God sent you a great spouse to lead you to him. Maybe he sent you pain…….for the very same reason. I believe that God, like any parent, is willing to expose his child to brief pain in order to preserve his child’s future.

So…….. the meaning of life for a Christian?

All of it………the joy and the pain……..is there to lead you past a fork in the road………accept or deny.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, “Mountain Interval”

I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Moses, NIV

I’m mad at bunch of people.

The guy who robbed a family member.
The roofer who ripped off my son.
The guy who threatened my granddaughter.
The girl who bullied my granddaughter.
All of those who use handicapped parking but have no meaningful handicap.
The road rage guy who yelled at my wife.
The guy who charged me $1500 for 15 minutes of shabby work on my chimney.

And many more…….

My list is long; but, I know people who have lists much longer than mine.

Consider the people on my list…..and on yours. The things that they have done are deplorable…..no question about it.

In our society, we are constantly told to hate the people whom we are mad at. Every day, on our phones, on our computers, and on our TVs, somebody is demonizing their “enemy du jour”. Just like in junior high school……… they are trying to recruit you and me to hate the person that they hate. I see people who are otherwise very nice people…….friends of mine……doing this just about every day on Facebook.

But, here’s the problem.

God loves them all. Yes…..he even loves the guy parked in the handicapped spot……..whose only handicap is that he is lazy.

Even worse……..he loves those on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Hold your nose……..God loves Donald Trump……….God loves Nancy Pelosi.

So…….how do we handle our anger…..how do I handle my anger? I think that we need to try something that goes against our more base instincts.

Don’t hate someone because a politician or “talking head” told you to. They are trying to manipulate you to accomplish their goals. We should have left this behavior behind in junior high school.

Learn how to disagree without demonizing the other guy. Believe it or not he pretty much wants the same things that you do. When someone tries to recruit you into their hate……just turn away.

Remember that the only thing that you can control is what you say and do. People will hurt you. They will do bad things. Politicians will do things that you don’t like. This is never going to change, whether you wade into the mud slinging or not. Let it go and move on. When the other guy does something bad…… do something good. Go high when they go low.

If you do these things you will be in harmony with one of the two great rules of Christianity ………love your neighbor. This is the road to inner peace. Even more importantly, it is the only path to lasting joy.

This bears repeating.

LOVING OTHERS IS THE ONLY PATH TO LASTING JOY.

You can do this. You can love the other guy……..even if he hurts you……..even if she disagrees with you over something very important………abortion, gun control, the wall, the president, congress, you name it. This will drive the politicians and “talking heads” crazy.

And it will put a smile on God’s face.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Paul, NIV

I have been struggling with last week’s post just a little. It is very likely that some of you have had an abortion. And, for what it’s worth, I include both fathers and mothers here. It was not my intention to accuse you or hurt you.

So……..what if I had an abortion decades ago? What does that mean for me today? What lies ahead?

As a Christian, I believe in eternity past and eternity future…..that is……paradise. These two eternities are separated by a tiny sliver of time that we call our life. Our life seems very important and very big from where we stand today. But……if you look at the big picture……..our life is actually tiny. It is only important to the extent that we have one critical decision to make. To accept God…….or deny him. That is the only important decision because it is the only decision that we will ever make that has eternal consequences. I suspect that much of what happens to us during our life happens to prepare us for that decision.

So…….what in the world does this have to do with abortion?

Your child existed from the instant of conception………and probably long before conception. Your child is in paradise right now…….and you will meet her after your brief time in this world. What will that meeting be like?

First off, let me deal with what it will not be.

She will not walk up with tears in her eyes and say, “how could you have done that to me!”

What will happen is this:

She will run to you with open arms and shout “Mommy…Daddy, I’ve been waiting for you!” There will be a group hug, tears, laughter…….and then eternity spent at peace in the one place that you were created for.

So…….if you look at the big picture…….the eternal picture, your abortion changes the outcome very little. The only rub here is not whether your child will enjoy paradise, that is a given…….it is whether you will enjoy it with her.

And this all hinges on that one critical decision…….to accept or deny God.

I just watched the movie “Unplanned”. This is not an uplifting “feel good” movie……no matter which side of the debate you fall on. I think that we can all agree that it is a “hit piece” aimed at Planned Parenthood. There is some bias in it……the Christians are kind and gentle and the management at Planned Parenthood range from callous to evil. To me, those are not the key issues.

For me, the key issue is………is it true?

The story revolves around a PP manager who leaves the company and becomes pro-life. I think that it is an accurate portrayal of her struggle. But, that is not the heart of the film. It includes graphic scenes of a complication that occurred during an abortion. But, that is not the heart of the film……complications occur in any medical facility. There are people portrayed as kind and people portrayed as evil……just like everywhere. That also is not the heart of the film.

The heart of the film is a 30 second video clip that shows an ultrasound of an early first trimester fetus being sucked into a cannula. You can see the baby flinch just before the end. I was a physician by trade for almost 40 years. There have been 60 million abortions in the U.S. And yet, I had never seen a video like this.

This portrayal of the fact of what an abortion is…….is the heart of this film. It is shocking. It is disturbing. It is profoundly sad.

And it is true.

Pro choice advocates do not want this truth to circulate. That is why it took 60 million abortions and 40 years before a video clip like this one was made public. Pro choice advocates would prefer to conduct this conversation on the grounds of civil rights.

But hiding this truth is dishonest.

If you are pro-life, you need to see this heartbreaking movie.

If you really don’t care one way or the other you need to see this movie to educate yourself.

If you are pro-choice, you probably won’t watch it. But, ask yourself why? If the truth disturbs your beliefs…….if the truth disturbs your desires…….which do you discard? In a word, if you choose not to watch this movie…….you are discarding the truth in order to defend your desires. This calls for courage, self examination, and honesty.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”

Jeremiah, NIV

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.”

David, NIV

My prayer is that the women who are considering abortion will choose to let their babies live…….that abortion clinics will become irrelevant money losing anachronisms.

If you would like to view the video clip, here is a link to the you tube page.

Please understand…….this is graphic, disturbing, and sad.

What is evil and why is it important?

We live in a world where we are told every day that we must be tolerant. We are told that the range of human behavior is very broad and that we should accept and embrace people, ideas, and acts that are different from us. For the most part this is good counsel. We should not reject an idea or person simply because they are different. But, I think that we have become victims of “tolerance creep”. The idea of tolerance has spread to mean that we should tolerate just about everything. And this is wrong.

Tolerance in itself is neither good nor bad. It all depends on just exactly what we are tolerating. Tolerating evil is not good. We tolerated Hitler in the 30’s and got WW 2 for our mistake. The people at NAMBLA say that we should tolerate adult men sexually abusing boys. This type of tolerance is misguided.

We should not tolerate evil. But, to do this we must be able to accurately identify evil. This is no small task. Every day someone gets on our TV, our cellphone, our computer and tells us that someone or some idea is evil. Why…….because THEY don’t like it. The sad truth is that there are thousands of lists of evils floating around. Some of these lists are good and some are not. Paradoxically, some of the lists of evil being sold to us are so bad that you could argue that the list itself is evil.

How do we navigate this minefield? If our list of evils is too short, we risk being recruited into somebody else’s evil. If our list of evils is too long, we become angry and judgmental……and we alienate those around us.

We can make up our own list……..but, unfortunately, we are basically dishonest……..every last one of us. The sad truth is that anything that we really want to do is going to be absent from OUR list of evils. Our list then becomes nothing more than a tool for beating up the other guy. One guideline that I can offer……..if you are exploring a list of evils and it doesn’t include something that tempts you, then you are either a saint or the list is suspect.

Or…..we can adopt somebody else’s list. This calls for discernment. The most widely sold lists in American culture come from our political parties and the media talking heads that speak for them. I distrust these lists from both the right and the left because they are typically being promoted by someone with a political agenda (Hannity, Acosta, etc.).

I have tried out many lists in my life. My home grown lists have been failures. So, I have looked around. I have come to the conclusion that the most widely accepted and reliable list of good and evil available today is the Bible. I believe that the Bible is the most reliable moral code available to us. It offers the most comprehensive understanding of good and evil available to us today.

Obviously, this is a huge document. Nevertheless, I recommend reading it cover to cover. Check out a smart phone app like “bible in a year”. Meanwhile, to get you started, here is the “Cliff notes” version:

Love God
Love your neighbor
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t murder
Honor your parents
Sex is for husbands and wives
Don’t covet
Rest on Sunday

God, NIV (abridged)

Master this list and you are well on your way to living a good life and escaping evil.

FWIW………mastering this list…….is a lifetime undertaking.

I try to boil things down to basics. What is the basis, the ultimate foundation of Christianity? To put it another way. What is the single stone that everything else is built on?

There is the physical world…..and there is the non-physical world…….the spiritual world. The physical world is easy. We can reach out and touch it. We can measure it. We can manipulate it (for better or worse). The spiritual world is tougher. Most of us believe that there is something beyond the physical……though we vary widely in the details. But, a growing number of us belief that there is no spiritual world at all…….you die and you’re dirt. The difficulty is the point at which the physical world and the spiritual world intersect. It is really important that we get this right. Our decision to accept the spiritual world or reject it…….or, worst of all……ignore it altogether, will have consequences that will extend far beyond our brief 80 years.

What exactly is at the intersection of the physical world and the spiritual world?

Christianity teaches that at the intersection of these worlds is Jesus…….a being who is fully human (physical) and fully God (spiritual). This is pretty radical. Obviously, this changes everything. What is it that proves that Christ is both man and God? There is solid evidence that Christ lived. There are historical accounts of his crucifixion. I think that the vast majority of people, both Christians and skeptics, can agree on that. We accept that Christ was a man……that he operated in the physical realm. But, is he God? That’s where we get into trouble.

So…… the crux of it all is the resurrection.

This clearly crosses the line from the physical world to the spiritual world. In the physical world, the resurrection simply is not possible. The resurrection proves that Jesus operates in both the physical world and the spiritual world. More importantly, the resurrection gives Jesus ultimate authority. In a word, it means that we have to take what he says seriously. And what he says is the basis of Christianity……love God and love your neighbor.

The resurrection either happened……..or it didn’t. There is no middle ground. Either there is a spiritual realm as Jesus said……or there isn’t. And we have to pick a side…….ignoring the question is to deny the spiritual realm by default. The consequences for you……and for me…..are extreme. We have to get this binary choice right. And the simple fact is that most of us don’t take this critical decision seriously. We spend more time working on our “play list” than on this foundational question.

The resurrection happened. It is a fact…….and it establishes the divinity of Jesus.

Hundreds of people witnessed Christ after the resurrection. They talked to him, touched him, ate with him.

11 ordinary practical working men, men who were there, died gruesome deaths rather than deny the resurrection.

There are multiple texts that support it.

The primary reason for denying the resurrection today is that we don’t want to deal with a supernatural God who tells us what we can and cannot do. A human boss is bad enough; but……for many of us, a divine supernatural boss is intolerable.

So there it is.

There is solid testimony that the resurrection happened.
The resurrection proves that Jesus is God.
When Jesus speaks, God speaks.

We need to pay close attention, because what Jesus tells us to do is far more important than what we want to do.

Fortunately, what he tells us to do is easy.

Love God and Love your fellow man.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light .”

Jesus, NIV