Blessed Easter!
Easter is the greatest event and celebration in the Christian calendar! It is a powerful reminder that our faith is living because our God is alive!
The apostle Paul tells us that his goal in life was to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection even as he shared in the sufferings of Christ! (Phil 3:10). He realized that the more he knew Christ, the more he would have to undergo suffering for the sake of Christ and the Gospel. Yet he knew that as he went through these sufferings, he would likewise experience Christ’s supernatural grace. In 2 Corinthians Paul wrote,?we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed ….always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies….?(4: 1-11).
The God we worship and serve is a living God. He knows our needs and he sees our pain as we live and serve broken people in a broken world. He is?El Roi,?the God who sees! It is amazing that an Egyptian slave woman, Hagar, was the first to call Yahweh,?El Roi! Yahweh appeared to Hagar, in her loneliness and desperation. He spoke to her words of comfort and gave her a promise regarding her unborn son. It was in this context that Hagar uttered in wonder and amazement –?You are a God of seeing…truly here l have seen him who looks after me.?(Genesis 16:13).?How graphic! How comforting!
When the Israelites suffered as slaves in the hands of their Egyptian masters, God appeared to Moses and commissioned him to bring them out of Egypt because he had seen their afflictions:?Then the Lord said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Eyptians…?(Exodus 3:7-8)
Yahweh is?the seeing God. He saw our desperate need and he entered our world of sin as Jesus the Messiah, to rescue us from our plight of sin and death! He came to offer us abundant life on this earth and life eternal in the next!?Hallelujah What a Saviour!?Today he continues to see our pain and hear our cries.
This triune God that we worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dwells in us and is the ‘treasure’ that gives us supernatural grace amidst the challenges in this sinful and broken world. Because he lives, we can face all our tomorrows through the resurrected power we have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I serve a risen Saviour,
He’s in the world today,
I know that He is living,
Whatever men many say,
I see his hand of mercy,
I hear his voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him,
He’s always near.
He lives, He lives,
Christ Jesus lives today.
He walks with me and talks with me,
Along life’s narrow way,
He Lives, He lives,
Salvation to impart,
You ask me how I know He lives?
He lives within my heart. (Alfred H Ackley)
Like Paul let us also?yearn?to know him [Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and may [we] share [in] his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…. (Phil 3:10)
