Turn It Up…

For the hard workers, the lovers, the fighters, the risk takers, the dream makers and the world changers…

For the selfless, the compassionate, the adoring…

For the unsure, the skeptical, the questioning…

For the careful, the cautious, the broken, the healed, the weak, the strong, the defeated…

Every year we think about Easter and what it means to us. It could be another Sunday that we go about our everyday lives. Or we think about what it symbolizes, and on that day we show up to church, we eat with our families, we pray, we treat each other well, we try not to cuss (N0, not on Easter!), then we go home and go to sleep to start a new week. Rarely does that gift of Jesus’ death satisfy our souls every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, and year upon year of our lives…but what if it did?

What if we spent so much time looking into Jesus’ heart and consistently thanking Him for what He did for us, allowing our lives to be open and surrendered to Him?

Why don’t we do that?

Because we want more.

We want to work harder, do more, be more, see more, feel more, experience more, live more of life. And while none of those thoughts are sinful or wrong, we get caught up in this life and we forget the reason that we are actually living. We forget that we do not buy our way into heaven and we convince ourselves that we have control. We want so much more out of everything that we are constantly moving to get where we want to go next. We rarely just sit here and rest in the truth of what price has been paid for us…the price that has been paid for freedom, grace, mercy, and life.

If Jesus was sipping coffee across the table from me right now, I don’t even know if I could utter a thank you because I feel like that isn’t enough. For the pure who loved unconditionally, who cast out demons, who healed, who faced the deepest fears, who was challenged, who was beaten and violently abused, who was spit on, and who was nailed to a cross to tear the veil and finish it all then to rise from the dead three days later…I feel like He deserves more than that. More than I can offer to Him.

But He made us worthy, He called us by name, He wrote us in His book to let us know that as His children, we were worth that price. Even when we don’t measure up, even when we loose sight of what we are living for, and even when we are sinful whether we mean to be or not. He covered us.

The day I not only believed in Jesus, but began to follow Jesus, I was terrified as I read this verse:

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.”

Luke 9:23

I didn’t want to give up my control (or the control I thought I had) but I did because I knew of and understood the love that Jesus poured out for me, how He conquered the grave, and how Him, being the ultimate satisfaction, is enough. Even though I struggle and I am faulty and I have turned my back, He still loves me anyway. He still pursues my heart, opens my eyes, invites me to rest my head on His chest, and calls me lovely.

I am constantly challenged to deny myself and my immediate wants and desires. I want to be pushed towards Jesus because the only hope I can have lies in Him, the price that was paid on that cross and how He conquered death on that third day. He is my ultimate peace when my heart is anxious, the perfection that I am not, and the hand that has promised to never let me go. He has captured my heart and overwhelmed it with the gift of grace and an abundant love that is forever more.

As you may be challenged, I am challenged too, to reflect on my life and the sacrifice that was made for it, everyday.

To not just believe, but to follow.

To not fear, but to instill my hope in something greater than myself.

To know and trust that I {YOU} are a chosen child.

To praise His name everyday and to never forget the meaning of Easter…

It is the reason I am standing here.

Jesus is the reason I am standing here, for He is alive in me.

Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.