The Easter season is a busy time for most pastors.  Sonya found this cartoon at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church’s website.  Holy Trinity is located in Port Neches, Texas.  Sonya worked there as secretary for a couple of years.  I liked this cartoon:

Holy Week for the church is kind of like Football’s Division Title Games followed by the Super Bowl.  Our Super Bowl is Easter Sunday and we are working to build up to that important service.

This morning I am finishing up my Palm Sunday message, “One Week To Live”.  Looking at Christ’s Triumphal Entry with the thought that He only has one week to live.  It reveals the passion of Christ’s heart and sets up His desired end to the Cross and Resurrection.

I just finished my message to be delivered to the Rogers Ministerial Alliance service on Monday.  I have the privilege of sharing God’s Word with the area churches for one of the Holy Week services.  I was given the topic, “The Day of Authority.”  I guess the new guy has to take the hardest of all topics to deliver nicely to all denominations.  The key text is where Jesus drives out the money changers of the temple and calls them thieves.  Sure sounds like a fun topic for a ministerial alliance sermon, huh? 🙂

By the time I finished studying this important passage, it actually reveals God’s heart for His house…to be a house of prayer, healing and joy.  Something that every church and denomination should strive to be.

I encourage you to join us for our Holy Week Services…Beginning here at RFA on Sunday 10:30am.

The ministerial alliance services will be at Rogers Oakley Chapel daily next week from 12:15-12:45pm.

See you there!

Mark Batterson writes a great article on how God’s creating Earth was perfect:

“I keep thinking about one of the opening lines of Earth. The narrator, James Earl Jones, says the earth is perfectly angled to the sun, 23 degrees, to sustain life. Actually, our axial tilt varies from 22.1 to 24.5 degrees. But it really is an amazing thing the way our planet is precariously yet perfectly positioned to sustain life. And there is no margin for error. Planet Earth is 93 million miles from the sun. If we were just 1% closer or further from the sun, the climate changes could disrupt our Eco-equilibrium making Earth uninhabitable. On top of that, our atmosphere is the perfect combination of nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) with traces of carbon dioxide, argon, hydrogen, helium, and other gases. If the oxygen percentage were just a few percentage points higher, we’d be highly flammable.

So here’s the question: is this the result of random chance or Intelligent Design? I know it takes faith either way, but I honestly think it takes more faith to believe it’s all random. Of course, the curious thing is that those of us that believe in an Intelligent Designer or Creator are often put on the defensive as if we’re the only ones operating on faith.

For what it’s worth, Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle once said in an address to the British Academy of Science, "Let’s be scientifically honest. The probability of life arising to greater and greater complexity by chance through evolution is the same probability as having a tornado tear through a junkyard and form a Boeing 747 jetliner." I love that imagery. He calculated the chances of life being the result of random chance as 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power.”

HT: Mark Batterson

As we enter into Easter Season, I am reminded of all of the benefits that have been afforded us because of Christ’s Death and Resurrection.  The greatest of those benefits, I believe, is the power He has given us over darkness.  Simply put, His salvation.

Colossians 1:13 says, “He delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”

Christ secured deliverance for us and placed us in His Kingdom.  He has delivered us from Satan’s snare and given us eternal life through Christ.  Salvation is the greatest benefit from this deliverance but it has much more.  We find deliverance from sin, bondage, sickness and other tactic’s of the enemy of our souls.  Christ is much more powerful and greater than any trap of Satan.

The Spirit Filled Life Bible notes interpret this verse:
“Delivered us…darkness conveys the idea of salvation rescuing us from the tyranny of darkness.  Drawing on an important OT theme (see Ex. 6:6; 14:30), it includes rescue from such negatives as danger, death, sickness, and hostile situations in general (Ps. 33:18-19). These rescues include both present deliverances and future, consummated deliverances in the world to come.  Conveyed refers to the deportation or transference of captured armies or populations from one country to another.”

My favorite picture of this deliverance from darkness is us getting a new owner.  When we were slaves to sin, we were owned by the devil.  Now God is our owner…He has transferred us to His possession.  He has given us a new title of ownership.

Wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.

-John Wesley-

I have been reading in Leviticus this morning and I am extremely thankful that I was called into ministry in the 21st century under the New Covenant. I can’t imagine the requirements for the priest in Old Testament times. Not only did they have to be consecrated and from the lineage of Aaron, but they also couldn’t have weak stomachs.

Leviticus 1, “The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off its head, and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out at the side of the altar.”

Not only did they have to wring off bird’s heads, but they had to slaughter animals.  Pour out blood.  Remove intestines.  Examine leprosy.  That’s all too much for me.  I do not have a stomach for all of that stuff. 

I am glad that Jesus shed His blood once and for all and now we do not have to get involved in those sacrifices.  Jesus paid it all so we wouldn’t have to go through the sacrifices and the tedious points of the law.  He came to give His life as a ransom so that we would no longer have to go through the Old Covenant practices.  Thank God for His Grace and Mercy!

There are but two essential requirements: first: Has any one cheated death and proved it? Second: Is it available to me? Here is the complete record: Confucius’ tomb – occupied; Buddha’s tomb – occupied; Mohammed’s tomb – occupied; Jesus’ tomb – empty.

-G.B. Hardy-