Just a few days Ago

A few Sunday's ago, Pastor Frank noted that a thousand years is like a day in the eyes of the LORD. Therefore, he said, it was just a few days ago that Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead!

I've been thinking about this every day.
It makes the gospels come alive.

Just a few days ago, Jesus fed the 5,000.
Surely, He will feed me today.

Just a few days ago, He healed the blind man,
and cleansed the leper, and made the deaf to hear.

It makes faith come near.
This just happened in God's eyes.
It's not something in the distant past.

When I was a little girl,
I thought Jesus was crucified every year.
I would get sad at Easter and think about Him
dying on a cross somewhere out there.
I remember where I was and where I was standing,
when my older sister told me that He died once,
a long time ago and that He never needed to die again.
I was so relieved!

I never want to crucify Him again.

It can be done.

In Hebrews 6:6,
it speaks of those who have experienced His light, His gifts, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and His power.
All of those things were given to the church because He was crucified and rose again.

But if we've experienced the power of the cross and then decide to disown Him, deliberately abandoning our faith,
it says that is impossible to renew our repentance, since we crucify for ourselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

I wish it didn't say those words.
But the blood of Christ is precious
and cannot be misused.

Having doubts,
being unsure,
being hurt and pulling back for awhile
is not the same as deliberately disowning Him.

Sometimes,
we experience a crisis of faith,
and we are not sure of Jesus and God and His Kingdom.
Sometimes,
like in marriage,
we experience an ebb and flow
in our relationship with Christ.

Faith is a process
and sometimes our belief systems
do get broken.

Sometimes,
Christian people turn their own people away from faith in Christ because of their hypocrisy and cruelty and lack of compassion.

I think Jesus weeps when we do that to each other.

But even though Christians have wronged us
and life circumstances have disrupted our neat
little boxes of faith,
we can still love God
because He first loved us.

He didn't do anything wrong.

Why should we leave Him?
Why should we abandon and disown Him
because of those who bear His name?
Why should we not believe in Him
just because He does things differently
than what we think He should?

Please don't crucify Him again.
Seek Him. Ask Him to help you know Him.
Tell Him your faith is in a cave.
I have done this.
He has helped me.

When the women went to the cave to put spices on Jesus' body,
they did not believe His words that He would rise again. Their faith was in a cave.

One does not bring spices to preserve
the body of a living Christ.

He helped their unbelief.
He showed Himself to them.
He reassured them over and over.
He'll do the same for you.

After all,
it was only 'yesterday'
that their 'crisis-of-faith-cave'
became an empty tomb.