Easter Sunday • We have three reasons to be happy for Easter. The first reason is what we move from fasting to feasting. Happy "feaster" everybody! The second reason is that we can dress up nicely and have a good day with family and friends and our church family. And the third reason to be happy is that Jesus has risen from the dead. The Resurrection means that we can find hope even in our most hopeless places. It is hard for us to appreciate how truly hopeless Good Friday looked to Jesus' first disciples.

When did God become real for you? Did you ever have an experience that moved you from believing in God just because that's what you were told to knowing for yourself that God exists? For me, the death of Pope John Paul II was a time when God let me know he was with me.

The Risen Jesus is with us and he wants to walk with you every day. If some guy in India died and then rose again, it wouldn't impact you very much. But what if your best friend rose from the dead? That would change your life! The reason why many only experience Easter as a nice day is because they don't know Jesus personally.

Your friendship with Jesus is what makes Easter great. Easter is proof that, even after we have rejected him, God still desires Communion with us. We are often unaware of how deeply we desire communion. We were made for a life of Communion with God himself. The invitation of Easter is to die to the old life of self-reliance and isolation and rise to a new life of communion with God and reliance on God. The harder we try to live for ourselves, the less fulfilled we feel. The more we see ourselves as a gift and give ourselves back to God, the more fulfilled we feel.

Jesus desires a deep, personal communion with you. What do you want?

(20 Apr 2025)

Going Deeper: Our Communion with Jesus should transform us into visible images of his invisible love. If you're doing life well, your wife and kids should see Jesus in you. How much do you really look like Jesus?

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