Episode 481

TODAY’S READING

“18 “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day, he will be raised to life!”

Matthew 20:18-19

 

We are going to be celebrating what it means to be Christian. Our Savior, the Son of God, came down from heaven and lived a sinless and perfect life. And this season, this Easter season, is all the reason why we believe the way we lead to him dying and being raised to life three days later is the full reason that we get to live in the freedom that we don’t get to have to live in our sin because He paid the ultimate price. And so this is like the Super Bowl for us these next two weeks because this is the time in which we get to share our testimonies with people who will be asked questions we don’t necessarily know, and we get to talk about how he is someone who sacrificed himself for us. And there is a journey in that there was the journey of his birth and his life and then, of course, the journey to Calvary and then the journey of him being raised to life after those three days, and I wanted us to take time this morning. 

 

I wanted us to take time this morning to read this passage and get our hearts ready just to be thankful for our Father who sent His Son and thankful for a son who decided to put us first and so let’s re-read it together. We are going up to Jerusalem. So he’s talking to people traveling the road with Jesus, so they are a part of the same journey ahead. We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. And we’re going to dive into that. But the teachers of the law and the chief priests were people who believed in the Jewish law; they praised and worshipped the same Father, the same God, and they were the ones who were going to deliver Jesus right. They are the ones who are going to crucify him. They’re going to condemn him, going to charge him with these crimes, and they’re going to put him to death, and they will hand them over to the Gentiles to be blocked and flog like this says, and on the third day, he will be raised to life, and so this is the perfect love story. 

 

The ultimate love story is a Savior who loved us so much that he died willingly knowing that, you know we would mock fog him knowing that we weren’t worthy of it knowing that we didn’t know what we were doing. And so I just wanted us to get ready. It is a beautiful season. It is also a heavy season because I want us to feel, you know, some of the pain in the betrayal that he may have thought at the moment, but yet the underlining love and grace and so whatever area you have today that you want to surrender and just say thank you, Lord, for choosing me, even though I’m far from perfect. I think that today would be the perfect opportunity to do so.

 

Prayer

Father God, we love you so much; only thank you for this beautiful Monday in this lovely week. Lord, this weekend we lost a sister in Christ, and we are just praying for her family and are praying for the boost of their family as they navigate these waters. They are new parents, and they are also grieving the loss of their mother, and so Lord, we’re extending all of the prayers their way; we know that you are there amongst them. We know that her mother is dancing in heaven with you. And then we know that here on earth, we battled these worldly sicknesses. We know that we are hauling complaints, and she is free from pain and in such a better place. So we thank you for that. Lord, we are just overall grateful today for your son. We are thankful for our relationship with you. We’re grateful that you chose us even when we didn’t deserve it. And so, we are excited to go deep into the Easter story over the next two weeks. We just want you to minister to us, Lord, reveal different things, and get us ready to once again digest this story and learn and lean into it and let us learn something new that we may not have learned before. We thank you so much, and it is in your son’s holy name that we pray every day. Amen.