Sunday, April 4th will mark my twenty-fifth Easter as a Christian. I came to Christ as an eighteen-year-old in South Carolina. That makes me forty-three. At this age and after these many years, I seem to need the same reminder every Easter. I need someone to remind me Easter means more than pastels and eggs, peeps and chocolate bunnies, tulips and warmer days. I need someone to remind me why...
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”“O death, where is your victory?O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Corinthians 15:55-57 Meditating on death, at its very core, is morbid and depressing. We mourn, weep, and lament death, sure—but what is the point of taking a...
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”Luke 23:34 ESV What we see today as a beautiful cross, an expression of religious art set in precious metals or stained glass, was a sign in Jesus’s day of wickedness, punishment, and judgment. The cross meant humiliation and prolonged suffering, torture, and shame. Jesus carried the massive top beam, weighing about a hundred pounds, on his...
Nearly two thousand years ago, a wooden cross and an empty tomb served as the setting for the greatest rescue mission in history. Of course, this mission is none other than the gospel of Jesus Christ—the good news of a loving Father going to great lengths to save his broken children. The sad truth is that because we turned away from God and went our own way (Isaiah 53:6), each and every one of us...
Is God good? Can I trust him with my life? Is the Bible true? These are just some of the questions that can plague college students and twenty-somethings as they stand at the crossroads of life, when new responsibilities loom large and the world around them treats God as a small or irrelevant part of life. In his book, DoubtLess: Because Faith is Hard, author and Cru campus minister Shelby...
