Bold Believers

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024, marks one year since we held your hand for that last time as you walked through the gates of Heaven. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence this “first” is on the very day we celebrate the resurrection life we have through Jesus.

I’ll never forget that moment for the rest of my life. For sometime, it haunted me. I’m sure it always will. While at the same time, it gave me great peace and comfort. As we prayed and comforted you in those last moments, I felt Heaven in that room. Every inch of my body felt a presence I can’t fully comprehend. It’s as if I felt two realms collide in one last breath. As your body met it’s end, we knew right where you were going. I knew the first person who would greet you at that gate, and He would say “well done good and faithful servant.”

To live this life we get on Earth without this ‘hope that makes no sense’ seems impossible to me now. It’s in these dark trials that we are brought to our knees. Fully revealed and surrendered to the Father. It’s where we find Him. Where we hear that still small voice. It’s where we grow deeper than ever before, more than most people can understand. If we allow it, we come out changed and never the same. Forever tethered to those dark moments and we will never forget how God carried us through them. He brings light into darkness.

Because God came down from Heaven, took the form of a humble servant and laid down His life for us, we might have eternal life. As Jesus hung on that cross, it’s said what kept Him there was the joy laid before him. As He felt the weight and pain of our human sin placed on Him… He endured because He knew Sunday was coming. Salvation and resurrection life was on the other side of this death and pain. This is the hope of Heaven. This is the good news of Jesus.

The kingdom of God is so backwards. And we fail often to portray this well to the world. But God is running after you, full of your sin and shame. Mistakes and failures. He is a GOOD God. He is a good Father. Despite our suffering on this side of Heaven. He will take it all and give you a new heart. A new inheritance that cannot be stripped. This is Easter. The most wild and radical story of redemption you’ll ever know.

As hard as that day was one year ago, I’ve never been more sure of the hope of Heaven than I am now.

Happy Easter 🤍

”for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” Romans 3:23-24 ESV

”Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“ Romans 5:1-8 ESV