  H EASTER, ONE of my favorite holidays of the year. We love Easter because it is not only one of the most spiritual holidays but a time for reflection and family to come together. It is a remembrance of Jesus rising from the dead, known as His Resurrection.
Most of us who have grown up in church have been taught the resurrection and the significance of why he rose from the dead, but what most people may fail to recognize in this very important event was His main purpose for doing it.
In our modern day vernacular we understand the main significance of Easter as Christ the Messiah resurrecting from the dead to not only prove that He was the Son of God who is not dead but alive, but also to give to us who believe new life in His name.
Although we learn this and hear this every year at Easter Service, we forget or are unaware to take it further into our own personal lives that as He was given new life we also have been given new life through Him.
Romans 6:3-5: "Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection." NKJV
The main purpose that I was mentioning earlier is how we as His believers are to appropriate His resurrection into our own daily lives by receiving His new life into our hearts as new creations by faith, and as it says here in Romans 6:5, "we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection." In other words, our transformation comes through living out His new life in us.
2 Corinthians 5:17: "If any man be in Christ He is a new creation, the old has passed away behold all things become new." NKJV
Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ. I no longer live but Christ lives in me, the life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." NKJV
If you have received Jesus Christ into your heart, my question to you is: Do you believe that you are a new creation in Christ, that you have a new life in Christ through the Holy Spirit? That your old nature has passed away or been put to death with Christ on the cross? That you yourself have been resurrected from the dead and now live in this new life?
These concepts may be hard to swallow, and I understand that you may have never thought of Christ's resurrection in this light before; but this is exactly what God's Word says and also why Christ rose from the dead, to give His new life to you through the Holy Spirit.
This understanding can only be received by grace through faith. It is not a concept you can rationalize into your life or earn it into your life by works; it has to be received by faith because it is a supernatural gift that can only come from God.
Romans 8:10-11: "But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." NKJV
My prayer for you this Easter is that you would receive from Jesus His new life in you by faith. That you are a new creation in Christ, the old has passed away and the new has come and therefore live as new creations and dearly loved children of God that will walk according to His Spirit and glorify His name.
Romans 8:15: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, and by him we cry, "Abba, Father." NKJV
Happy Easter from my family to yours!
Filoiann Wiedenhoff is a Pastor’s Wife, Work at Home Mom, Woman’s Biblical Counselor, Bible Teacher and Writer. You can subscribe to her monthly newsletter and visit her website.More columns by Filoiann Wiedenhoff
|
