i couldnt stay away...

Luke 24
"...they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen..."

a huge theme within my student teaching, and with my actual teaching/lessons has been the complacency we as believers begin to experience within our faith. we allow things to become mundane. we allow the Bible to become another book, and prayer to become something on another check list.

WE SERVE A SAVIOR WHO STRAIGHT UP ROSE HIMSELF FROM THE DEAD.

ok. phew. had to get that out.

helllllloooo. that is NOT MUNDANE. that is not average. that is not NORMAL.

"oh yea... easter sunday... Jesus rose from the grave today... awesome, let's find a church to go to..."

NO! (i mean, yes. going to church of course is good. but tomorrow is not just like any other sunday... stop acting like it's no big deal!!)

being a kid that grew up in a christian school (no joke. kindergarten through the top. yes. even grad school.) i have seen the Bible become just another book, and the truths and stories and life lessons within it become answers to a test, that you have to do well on so that your parents will be happy, or so that you can still play sports, or so that your other Bible college classmates wont judge you for not loving Jesus enough...

no only have i seen it happening around me. i have actively participated in it. i am guilty.

Jesus sacrificed everything. his own life. to live in RELATIONSHIP with us. and this is how i respond? by making his life something that is MUNDANE? something that is average, and hardly notable?
he bore our sins. not just ours, but of every single person to live. do you understand that? really. think about it. how many sins do you commit on an average day? 100 or so if youre being generous? at this moment there are 6,836,033,585 people on earth. that's just the people that are living right now. much less the people that have lived and died up until now. and the people that will live.

so... simple math. 100 sins a day x 365 days in a year = 36500 sins per year. the average life span is 80ish years = 2920000... i think you get the picture...

he bore every single last one of those. so that he could have a relationship with me. wow.
he died a painful, gruesome death. so that he could have a relationship with me. wow.
he defeated science. he defeated death. he walked out of a tomb. so that he could have a relationship with me. WOW. that is not mundane. that is not average.

THAT IS INCREDIBLE. that should move you. that should change your heart.
his word, the Bible, is not simply a book. it is a story of his love. of his grace. of his redemption. of his deliverance. of his wanting and pursuing a relationship with us. shame on us (me) for treating it so flippantly sometimes...