Is this just another day; one of the many in our lifetime.\u00a0 Or are you feeling the Easter joy!<\/p>\n
You should all be feeling tremendously joyful.\u00a0 And you should be fired up to share and witness your joy and belief because \u201cJesus Christ is risen; he is risen indeed.\u201d\u00a0 And all of us will rise just like him to eternal life if we believe, repent, and follow after him.\u00a0 Yes, all of us are called to be his witnesses.<\/p>\n
There was a time in human history when Resurrection from the dead and eternal life was just a vague promise.\u00a0 There was no proof because nobody had seen or experienced it.\u00a0 There were many veiled references in the Jewish Scripture.\u00a0 But they were not believed by everyone.\u00a0 And in fact, the Jews were split at Jesus time into two camps.\u00a0 The Pharisees and their followers believed in the Resurrection; and the Sadducees and their followers did not believe.<\/p>\n
But that all changed on Easter Sunday in the year 0 AD because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and showed himself to hundreds of people during that first Easter season.\u00a0 We hear of one of Jesus appearances in Luke\u2019s Gospel today; and how Jesus explained that he fulfilled the scriptures that predicted his suffering, death, and resurrection.\u00a0 And we have today\u2019s account from Acts on how the Apostles shared their experience with the people.\u00a0 They became the witnesses that Jesus asked them to become in the Gospel.<\/p>\n
But not only that, so strong was their conviction and faith that they were able to perform many miracles in Jesus name.\u00a0 They explained that these miracles were performed by the power of God, not by them; but because of their faith and the strength of their witnessing, they were able to perform such miracles.\u00a0 They were exuberant, and they didn\u2019t care what the authorities thought or did because they knew that everlasting life was real.<\/p>\n
And so, there is great cause for rejoicing for us because no matter what our lives have been like; and no matter what they will be like in the future here in this life; we know that there is something better.\u00a0 We have been told by eye witnesses, just as the people in the crowd in the account from Acts.\u00a0 Yes, all the events in Acts and the Apostles were recorded for our benefit.\u00a0 They were the records left by eye witnesses.\u00a0 Heaven is real; the messiah is real; and we are blessed who do not see, but believe.<\/p>\n
So, what are you and I doing about that?\u00a0 Are we spreading our joy?\u00a0 Or are we living life as we always lived it. The resurrection changed life for the disciples of Jesus.\u00a0 And like the Tribune in the recent movie \u201cRisen\u201d; it changed the life for all who saw first-hand.<\/p>\n
Those of us who have only heard but not seen- we are challenged.\u00a0 But blessed are those who believe and have not seen.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Jesus said.\u00a0 And we can make a difference by witnessing to the ends of the Earth.\u00a0 Jesus is counting on us to spread his word and the Gospel by what we say and do.\u00a0 Just like the miracles the Apostles worked through the power of God, God can do mighty works through those of us who believe.\u00a0 We do those works by following Jesus call to live our Christian values no matter what the rest of the world believes and does.\u00a0 The mighty works will follow.<\/p>\n
Yes, \u00a0\u201cJesus Christ is risen; he is risen indeed,\u201d Amen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of Easter Week Acts 3: 11-26; Luke 24: 35-48 Dc. Larry Brockman Is this just another day; one of the many in our lifetime.\u00a0 Or are you feeling the Easter joy! You should all be feeling tremendously joyful.\u00a0 And you should be fired up to share and witness your joy and belief because \u201cJesus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[127],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}