Happy Resurrection Day

to all my friends and readers. It is on this day that we remember God the Father raising His son, Jesus of Nazareth, from the dead.

Jesus was put to death in our stead - in the words of the church, a substitutionary atonement - because we deserve death for our sins. Jesus voluntarily, in His great love, died for us, so that we may have eternal life in God's presence.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British evangelist, once said, "Sooner could a fish live in a tree, than a sinner in the presence of God."

God is perfect and holy, and cannot abide sin. We could never see Him, except through the grace of Jesus. Jesus' shed blood enables us to stand in God's heaven, once we have been purged and cleansed by that blood.

The ancient art of animal sacrifice was not just some horrible pagan ritual. The New Testament book of Hebrews says, "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." (Heb. 9:22)

God demanded a death, the shedding of blood, to atone for sin. Jesus volunteered, and died for us. By accepting His sacrifice, and Him as your savior, you are born anew, sinless in the eyes of God, and able to spend eternity in His presence. God then raised Jesus again - a fact attested to by well of 500 of His contemporary followers, none of whom ever recanted. Even at the point of death, they insisted it was a fact.

We live because He lives. He is risen!