Today is Good Friday.  When I was a kid, Good Friday was little more than the day off before Easter.  While I understood what the day meant, I didn’t feel the significance of the day.  I’m glad that I feel the significance of the day now.

Good Friday and Easter are part of the core beliefs of Christians.  That God sent his son to die on the cross for our sins, and that three days later, he rose from the dead with all power in His hands.  This morning as I prayed, part of my prayer was for God to continuously help me to be mindful of the sacrifice.  And while I do want to be mindful of the sacrifice, I also want to continuously be mindful of the power of God.

Part of the Good Friday story is one, that I believe, represents struggle.  Yet Jesus, who was ever mindful of his purpose endures the struggle so that the purpose and the prophecy may be fulfilled.  That’s a lesson for all of us- we will endure many challenges on the road to our purpose.  However, we must stay diligent and endure so that our own purpose and the prophecy over our own life may be fulfilled.

I am limited.  I am a human with very real limitations and inabilities.  Yet, I serve a God who is completely limitless in the range of things that He can do.  As I reflect on how God has moved in my life, just over the past weeks and months, I’m in awe.  And for me, that is the other side of the Easter story- the power of God to accomplish anything.  The resurrection of Christ, for those who don’t belief, is perhaps a bunch of loony crap.  But for me, it fully encompasses the ultimate sacrifice and simultaneously expresses the love and power of God.

My prayer is that I’m always mindful and thankful of God’s expression of love; and that my heart is always open enough to yield to Him so that His power may work in my life.

I found the following passage from Jessica Kelley’s old blog, and I’d like to know what you think.  Here it is:

“Many Christians today insist that the keys to living a moral life are not drinking, not smoking, and not having extramarital sex. While avoiding these indulgences may help one to have a healthier body and avoid emotional baggage (benefits God surely wishes us to enjoy), do such omissions really help one be more Christlike? How much more discipline and faith does it require to actively give of one’s time and resources for the less fortunate? To practice selflessness and peace? Which would God prefer? What does the Lord require of us, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God?”

This intrigues me because I feel that Christianity is often posed as a list of things that one CANNOT do, as she has listed.  Yet sometimes, I feel that what gets left out are some of the other things: HOW to love thy neighbor as thyself, HOW to worship God in spirit and in truth, HOW to seek God with our whole heart, HOW to trust in the Lord with all thine heart.  Are those not as valuable as the list of “cannots”?

I suppose the argument would be that your actions reflect an inward change, and that if one has TRULY been born again, then they wouldn’t take part in such activities, and that their actions would indeed reflect that they know Christ.  But in all honesty, that’s not for me to judge.  I’ve got my own issues that I’m trying to improve on and settle with the Lord before we have our meeting.

We’re currently in the Lenten season, and I’ve heard different people express to me what they are giving up this year as to be mindful of the sacrifice of Christ.  While that’s cool, before I give up anything, I always think back to something that my former pastor told me.  He said that during the Lenten season we have a tendency to give up something that is indeed a sacrifice, but not necessarily something that will make us a better Christian.  If we are going to go through with this sacrifice, we should do so with the goal of becoming a better Christian.  So, giving up chicken or chocolate may be a sacrifice, but will you be closer to God after it’s over?  Just a thought…

And for the record, I don’t have the answers on how to live a moral life.  I just try to follow the Lord and do the best that I can.