Good Friday, a most sacred day, commemorated by Christians throughout the world, preceding the joyous celebration of Resurrection Sunday—unfortunately, oft referred to as Easter Sunday. This celebrated day marks the moment when Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), our Savior and God (John 1:1), offered Himself as the ultimate sacrifice upon the cross, that humanity might be redeemed.
Jesus, the Son of God, walked among His creation, drawing multitudes to pick up their cross and follow Him, embrace His healing compassion, and receive His mercy and grace. Yet among these many followers, a select few, the disciples, were His most trusted confidants, save for Judas Iscariot, the betrayer.
Though Jesus’ disciples walked with Him, they did not fully grasp the divine plan until it was fulfilled. On the eve of that fateful Friday, Jesus gathered His disciples for the Last Supper. He instituted the Lord’s Supper, declaring, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19). It was then that Jesus foretold the treachery of one among them, the disciple named Judas.
As the sun rose on Good Friday, Judas, driven by greed and darkness, betrayed Jesus with a deceptive kiss, delivering Him into the hands of the chief priests and elders (Matthew 26:47-56). Thus began a series of trials, where Jesus was judged by Annas and Caiaphas, and ultimately condemned by His own people for the crime of blasphemy. The Roman government, at the behest of these religious leaders, would carry out the death sentence.
Jesus, innocent and blameless, was presented before Pontius Pilate, who then sent Him to King Herod. Herod, in a cruel display of mockery, adorned Jesus in splendid garments (Luke 23:11) before returning Him to Pilate.
Herod questioned Jesus, hoping to witness some miraculous sign, but Jesus remained silent. In a display of mockery, Herod and his soldiers dressed Jesus in splendid clothing and then sent Him back to Pilate (Luke 23:6-11). Ultimately, it was Pilate who sentenced Jesus to crucifixion, succumbing to the pressure of the Jewish leaders and the angry mob demanding Jesus’ death.
Pilate, unable to find any guilt in Jesus, sought to appease the enraged crowd. In accordance with Jewish custom, he presented a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, a notorious prisoner, hoping the crowd would opt for Jesus’ release given the criminal reputation of Barabbas. However, the crowd ultimately chose to set Barabbas free, showcasing an early example of Jesus’ divine exchange—serving as a sinless substitute for a hardened criminal.
Thus, the Savior was condemned to bear the weight of His own cross upon the path to Golgotha, where He would be nailed to the cruel instrument of torture. There, He was taunted and abused by those who bore witness, until with His final breath, He declared, “It is finished.”
But what, one might ask, could make this heart-wrenching day so good?
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (John 3:14-15). The profound doctrines of Imputed Righteousness and Penal Substitution illuminate the true glory of Good Friday.
Imputed Righteousness, a cornerstone of the Christian faith, particularly among Protestants, proclaims that the perfect, sinless righteousness of Jesus is granted to those who believe in Him. For through His divine sacrifice, He accomplished what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do (Romans 8:3-4).
However, to bestow His righteousness upon us, Jesus took upon Himself the weight of our sins. This is the essence of Penal Substitution, whereby Jesus, sinless and pure, bore the full measure of our transgressions upon the cross. God the Father unleashed His righteous judgment, His wrath, upon His beloved Son, Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Thus, on this darkest of days, when a three-hour shadow engulfed the land, the brilliance of God’s love for His people shone forth. It was the day of the great exchange: the death of Jesus for the eternal life of those who believe. It was the day when the guilt of sin was lifted from the shoulders of the faithful, and in a divine exchange, God declared His people righteous before Him. This monumental day heralded the triumph of Jesus over sin and death, ensuring the salvation of countless souls.
As Jesus hung upon the cross, He knew the purpose of His suffering was nearing completion. Embodying the Scriptures, He expressed His thirst, and they gave Him sour wine upon a hyssop branch (John 19:28-29). Having received the bitter draught, Jesus proclaimed, “It is finished,” and surrendered His spirit to the Father (John 19:30).
And so, Good Friday stands as a beacon of hope, a testament to God’s infinite mercy and boundless love for His people. Through the suffering and death of our sinless Savior, the chains of sin were shattered, and the doors to eternal life flung wide open.
In this divine act, the faithful are reminded of the power of redemption and the transformative nature of God’s grace. The darkest day in the history of Christianity was, in truth, the dawning of an era of light and life for those who would come to believe in Jesus Christ, the risen Lord and Savior.
In the sorrowful commemoration of Good Friday, let us not forget the triumphant message it bears: our God, in His infinite wisdom and love, offered His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for our sins, that we might be reconciled to Him and inherit the gift of eternal life. Through the blood of the Lamb, we are cleansed, renewed, and redeemed, and in His resurrection, we find our victory over sin and death.
Therefore, let us rejoice and give thanks, for in the midst of darkness and despair, Good Friday is indeed a day of incomparable goodness, shining forth the radiant love of our God and the promise of eternal life in His glorious presence.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. —John 19:28-30
This was originally written a decade ago, so have mercy on me for the grammar and style!!!!Couple of things I wouldn’t say or word the same way, but we’ll let it ride. It’s also a bit of my testimony as well, along with my journey from continuationist to cessationist)
My first real exposure to speaking in tongues was at a youth conference in my late teens. The speaker mentioned this fantastical possibility, this new, exciting, and necessary part of the Christian faith. I remember him encouraging us to speak in tongues and telling us how vital it was. He spoke of how it would radically change our prayer life, our sin life, and our personal walk with God. As soon as I heard about it, there was nothing I wanted more than to receive it. There was never a question of if tongues were for everyone; it was taught that they were, and that they were evidence of baptism of the Holy Spirit, a second supernatural baptism subsequent to the first.
But the church I attended didn’t emphasize it, so I found one that did. At my new church, my new Pastor was ecstatic about the possibility of imparting this into my life, and devoted hours working with me and teaching those who hadn’t received the gift yet some techniques to start speaking in tongues.
He told us that we first had to clear our minds of any thoughts. This was because our mind wouldn’t understand what we were doing and would want to war against and question what our mouth was doing, and so it was important not to overthink it or think it at all.
Then, he told us some methods that would help get us going. He used the analogy that it was like starting a car on a cold day. Asking to speak in tongues was like turning the key, and all you needed was a little kick to help the engine turn over and get it to start roaring. These were some of his suggestions:
1. If I know a foreign language, start speaking that and ask God to transform it into a different one on the go.
2. Repeat the words “shabbada-shabbada shaka-whaoh” over and over again. This will train my mouth and my tongue to lose control and get used to making strange sounds.
3. Pick a phrase from the scriptures and say it over and over again, as fast as I can, until the words become unintelligible in my mouth. When I can’t say it any faster, take a leap of faith and say the first things that come to mind- often, this will be my new tongue.
4. Start making intercession with groaning that can’t be uttered. Start to groan and moan while curled up in a ball on the ground, from deep within my chest, visualizing my sounds transforming into words.
5. Read Bible verses but take out the vowels from what I’m reading, and try to pronounce them all the while asking God to give me the gift- this oftentimes acts like a kickstart.
6. Hold my hands over my ears so that I can’t hear myself speaking. Start saying words and making sounds as the spirit leads, and then have a friend come over and listen. I was told I should try plugging my ears because I was getting disappointed with the English words that were coming out of my mouth and then losing faith, which would kill it. After a time, keeping my ears covered, start speaking in tongues, with my friends nearby to hear it and confirm that it was happening.
I spent months practicing these things, trying to get my mind to turn over, but to no avail. I was warbling by tongues and lips in between guttural gasps in an effort to make something happen.
Anything.
But to no avail.
Consequently, I had become hopelessly disappointed. I went up to the altar on a weekly basis for prayer and rededications- my cheeks wet with tears as I sobbed and wept and asked God why everyone around me could do it, but I couldn’t.
Didn’t he love me enough to help me speak in tongues? I had been told that it was one of the main proofs of salvation, and my heart was becoming a ball of confusion and distress. At the time, I was struggling with sin and thoughts of suicide and was told that the Baptism of the Spirit would give me the power to overcome. With it being absent, all I could think was that I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t have enough faith, I didn’t repent enough, I didn’t tithe enough. All these things rocked my little ship of faith.
Then a Christian conference happened.
It had been two days of manic worship music, ultimate frisbee, and sleep deprivation. We just finished singing the same song, “Let It Rain,” for almost half an hour. An evangelist and revivalist appeared on stage and took a show of hands to see who had yet to speak in tongues. He said that he would slay us all in the spirit, and when we awoke, we would have the gift of tongues.
The room was hot and sweaty. Under blue and pink lights, he approached us and had all thirty of us line up on the stage and start left from right. Once we were all in a row, he would put his hands on my friends and almost throw them to the ground.
Thankfully, there were adults behind us who would catch us as we fell to ensure that the impact of throwing a body gone limp would not crack our skulls on the floor.
“SHANDALA-HUNDARA!” he screamed as he picked us off one by one.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Bodies were hitting the floor as if being cut down in a swath. I could hear some of the girls who had gone first starting to rise and stir as the sound of giggles and laughter filled the room, along with the sounds of unknown tongues.
Finally he came to me. I couldn’t breathe with anticipation. Finally, it was going to happen. I knew it was. This was going to be amazing. All I could think about was the coveted tongues. I wanted it so bad, and the knowledge that I would go under and come up a new man was exquisite. He gripped my head with his hands. I braced my soul. He blew a rush of air and spittle in my face and then yelled, “Spirit be released in Jesus’ name!”
But I did not fall as almost every other had, nor felt any impartation that I built myself up for. I wanted my knees to go weak. I wanted my legs to buckle. I wanted my mind to be assaulted by a hundred million senses and to come up for air with new words and a heavenly language and the powerful rapture of being so close to God that we shared a secret language that only we knew.
Instead, my legs remained strong. I did not bend or bow. Despite being nearly hurled towards the carpet, my instincts kicked in, and I twisted my body in such a way that I was able to catch myself on the front row chairs as I reeled back.
The speaker, content with seeing me displaced, went back to the center and compelled the praise band up to keep on playing while my friends and strangers laid with their backs on the floor. Their hands were raised slightly at their side and facing heaven, weeping and laughing.
I could hear the sound of garbled voices while I sat there, head in my knees, begging God’s forgiveness for being such a disappointment to him.
Months passed.
The disappointment took a a spiritual toll on me and I began to withdraw myself from church functions and other ministry events. I was a youth leader, and whereas I had been outwardly enthusiastic and committed initially, inside, my mind was roiling. I began to grow non-committal and distant. I was the one guy who didn’t speak in tongues. I was the one guy who couldn’t get it together. I was singled out by the Lord as unworthy of his gift and unworthy to communicate with him in this manner. Hell, I probably wasn’t even saved.
The impact that had on me was devastating, and it meant I had to live a lie for a long time.
During church services, we usually had people come up and give prophetic messages. They would say, “Thus says the Lord our God…..” and then proceed to give a message in tongues. Typically we would leave it at that- tongues were almost never interpreted- and the Pastor would thank them, and we would continue as normal. On rare occasions he would tell us that God told him that someone had the interpretation, and the service would grind to a halt until someone spoke it.
Oftentimes, I thought I had the interpretation. I was taught that after someone gives a word, if you clear your mind and focus on the words, that a thought would pop into your head. That thought was almost always the interpretation and that we should stand and give it.
I had spiritual things mulling around in my head during those times, and one time, I ventured a guess. I stood up and said [approximately] “Thus says the Lord, I love my people and I am pleased with their worship.” And then I sat down as fast as I could. The Pastor stared at me from across the room and then said, “That was good, but that was not the message that the Lord wanted to give us. Anybody else?”
I sat there with my ears red and my face burning, stewing in my own shame. After a few minutes and our go-to interpreter, stood up and said [approximately], “Thus says the Lord, I am coming to do a new thing. I am coming like a flood to wash away your impurities, so long as you walk in the new things. You cannot put new wine in old wineskins, and you can’t put old patches on a new shirt. So come to be and give me your hearts, humble yourselves and seek my face, and I will heal your land and bring prosperity.”
I was mortified that I had gotten the message wrong. Later, during my midweek discipleship time with the Pastor, he told me that I was acting in the flesh when I stood up because it didn’t make sense that someone who couldn’t speak in tongues could interpret those tongues as “only spiritual could interpret spiritual.”
I never ventured an interpretation again.
Then, one Friday night youth group something happened. March 12, 2004. I arrived early to pray and I felt troubled and uneasy. Agitated and mentally wandering. Probably the best description would be “angst.” My heart felt like it would overflow and burst with angst and resentment.
The service began and I sat there, leaning with my back against the wall, listening to a few praise songs, then watching and brooding as the worship leader began to lead a song in tongues. Disappointment and disillusionment welled up and broke the dam. Even my worship was defective. Deficient. Incomplete. Inadequate. Flawed. The hollow ache finally overcame me and I wept. Weeping and sobbing out of sheer frustration and futility, running my life through my head and hating every minute of it.
One of my friends came and put his hand on my shoulder, probably surmising that I was having an encounter with God, when the exact opposite was true. It was an awful, tortuous experience.
Then, in one last ditch effort, I bit my tongue as hard as I could and blurted out something, anything. In my mind, it was my final effort to speak in tongues. Sheer desperation. I was tired of crying. Tired of trying little speaking in tongue tricks. Tired of trying to make my mouth and lips do things they wouldn’t do. Tired of trying to force the issue. Tired of the constant awareness of inadequacy. So here it was- my final offering upon the altar of God’s faithlessness and indifference.
Out it came.
I was saying the words “God forgive me, God forgive me” over and over again, and I could think myself saying them, but I heard other words come out of my mouth. It wasn’t English or a language that I knew, but something altogether different. It bubbled forth and spilled out of me. It sounded like “Sundaya-kasho-run-daya sho-ko-tototo”. Even all this time later, I can still repeat those words and feel the familiarity wash over me.
I gasped.
The music was blaring from the front, under dim lights, and I could feel the fuzzy reverb bouncing inside my chest. I was hot and sweaty and exhausted, but all of a sudden I felt alive. Given over to reckless abandon and joy. I stopped speaking, waited a few seconds, then tried to say something again. I tried to say “Is this for real?” but all I could say, in my state of exhilaration and rapturous wonder was “shandya-ra-so-tototo-shun-da”.
After that night, I would speak in tongues often. I could conjure up this heavenly language in a heartbeat. I would start praying “I love you father- you are so perfect and good, you are the shunda-ra-saka- to-to-to…” and off I went. It was a seamless transition between my worldly, untamed tongue into my redeemed, holy tongue.
When I was at home, on the bus, in line at the supermarket- everywhere. My Pastor told me a story of a man who went and visited a pastor in Africa. The man greeted him, and they spent several days together. While the Pastor was friendly and conversant, the man noticed that whenever he wasn’t speaking out loud, his lips would always be moving- all throughout the day. Finally the man asked the Pastor what he was doing, and the Pastor replied that every second of every day that he wasn’t talking to people he was speaking in tongues quietly and talking to God.
That story resonated with me, and that’s who I wanted to be.
I wanted to be that kind of person, and for a while, three or four months, I felt like I was living it.
On one level, in one particular way, it was the nearest I ever “felt” to God. So many burdens lifted- so many of the old aches, scars, and spiritual cigarette burns began to heal and clear up. I began to engage with the church again. Whereas before I was sullen and quiet in worship, now I was bouncing up in down on my feet in the front row- hands raised high. In fact, I even grabbed a flag from the bin up front and started waving it until my arms were spent, speaking in tongues between sets.
I would participate in fire tunnels and when it was my turn to pray and prophecy, I would speak in tongues and people I touched would fall to the floor. Sometimes the pastor would announced that God told him to cancel the sermon because he wanted us to pray and worship, and I was all for it. Other times he announced that there were demons in the room, and that our words were weapons and we’d all start speaking in tongues until he announced they were gone.
It was a sacred and awesome power. I witnessed and shared my faith more, speaking in tongues before and after the encounters. I began going to all-night prayer meetings because I knew that I could just sit in a corner and speak in tongues, and the time would fly as I connected to God, blessed by these charisms that he had bestowed upon me.
Most importantly, though, I felt saved. I felt like a child of God. I didn’t feel like a disappointment to him, and in that period, I was able to “forgive God” for how I felt deserted and unloved because he never spoke to me.
But slowly, things started to shift. I realized after a few months that the elated feelings began to fade and that the high I was riding was beginning to level out. I thought that If I was speaking directly to God in a language that only him and I understood, that surely that would be more than sufficient to keep me in a state of peace and worship-that I wouldn’t experience the emotional and spiritual lows and highs, but rather would always be high.
And yet here I was, falling….falling….falling.
Coupled with this is that I realized that my tongues-vocabulary wasn’t very big. I would essentially say the same 20 words over and over again, just in different arrangements and sequences.
I brought this to the attention of my Pastor, and he told me that even though I was saying “Shundara” over and over again because it was a private prayer language, each time I said it, it meant something different. And so even though it sounded to me like I was saying the same phrase repeatedly, in reality, I was not, and in fact was having extended conversations in spiritual realm.
This whole process continued for a year, a slow decline into uncertainty and uncomfortable realities. I could still speak in tongues, but it had none of the energy, vitality, and rush that it had once brought me. While speaking in these tongues brought me a small comfort, in some ways I began to grow disillusioned with them because they seemed more forced as time went on, and none of that emotional spark was there. I didn’t feel like I was talking with God in a private prayer language- it just felt like I was saying “shundara” a lot, over and over, without that connection to something deeper and more profound.
[Note, I’m skipping tons of story here which relates to this, but long story short, I began to realize that much of the teaching from the pulpit was deceptive in nature and was more imaginative than biblical. I was becoming increasingly alarmed at some of the things that the Pastor said and taught, which I believe did not line up with the scriptures. (His hero was Todd Bently). Through a bible study at another college I began to learn enough about basic theology to know that not all was well. I left the Church I had been attending for years, after a showdown in the sanctuary with my Pastor after said something very heretical., and moved to another city.
I arrived in my new city a bruised and battered reed. I felt lied to, betrayed, burned, and keenly aware of my own ignorance. I felt far from God and felt like I really didn’t know him- that I only knew him emotionally and experimentally, but not intellectually or theologically.
I knew how he made me felt during worship, but not what my worship meant to him.
I knew how I liked to think about him and describe him, but not how he described himself.
I eventually began working the night shift at a local retail store stocking shelves. The job was simple enough and so to pass the time, I would load my iPod. I would scour iTunes and the internet and would load up hundreds of hours of sermons at a time and would play them all night.
It didn’t matter who it was- I didn’t know who was good or bad, who was sound or unsound. I listened to everyone across the spectrum, from seeker-sensitive pastors to latter-rain prophetesses, to independent fundamental Baptists, usually for four to six hours a night. I listened to hundreds of sermons from Steven Anderson and Hyles Anderson chapel services. I listened to all the big names in Pentecostalism. I listened to dozens of Roman Catholic homilies as well. The other hours I would listen to the audio version of the Bible.
I did this for nearly five years.
Sometimes I would listen to the Bible for the whole week, about 36 hours. Other times, I would load up Lutheran homilies, which are about 15-20 minutes each, and would listen to five years of that pastor’s sermons in a matter of days, burning through whole church catalogues on 1.5x speed.
Other times I would load up lecture series from Christian universities and would listen to 25 lectures on “Christian life on earth church history” or 18 lectures on” Reformed apologetics.” Still, other times, I said to myself, “I want to listen to the Book of Galatians today,” and then loop it for the next 6 hours.
I listened to thousands upon thousands of Bible and sermons in this time frame, and it didn’t take long for my life to change. As it relates to this story, I very quickly began to gravitate toward reformed preachers and teachers, men like John Piper, Matt Chandler, R.C Sproul, James White, Phil Johnson and most importantly John MacArthur. [the last sermon marathon I listened to was about 30 years of GTY sermons, all the way from the beginning, which took over a year.
I drifted away from the Joyce Meyers, Rick Warrens, Jack Schapps and Jack Hyles of the world and clung to those guys.
These were men whose sermons most closely reflected what I was hearing from the Bible. It seemed they took it extremely seriously and took the greatest pains to exegete the texts rather than prooftexts to score points. That’s what really stuck out to me. And these were mostly men who, to varying degrees, did not believe that the gift of tongues was active and present today, or if it was, was in qualified terms. That they were mostly all cessasionists and were able to argue and articulate why was incredibly disturbing and challenging for me.
In fact, early on I was outright hostile to this part of their beliefs, believing them pretty knowledgeable on most things, but definitely missing it on this one. This was a difficult spot to be in. These were my heroes, and yet they were saying that what I was experiencing was not legitimate. [These men’s teaching is also how I transitioned from a hyper-charismatic Arminian belief system to reformed doctrines of grace]
I began to do research and investigating the glossolalia. I had in this time developed the ability to study and exegete the biblical texts, found their argumentation extremely compelling.
I listened to the best defenses and argumentation for speaking in tongues, desperately wanting them to offer an excellent refutation and positive presentation of why, biblically, they were still for today.
What I found crushed me. My speaking in-tongues aside, from my perspective, had nothing to offer. They were soundly refuted. The arguments that I used to regurgitate for speaking in tongues seemed to me all of a sudden silly and a little bit embarrassing. I understood what tongues were in the Bible in that time frame and how they are vastly different than how they are practiced now. In short, I became convinced from the biblical evidence that speaking in tongues was an early Christian phenomena, a known language, that was unique to that period and not in play today.
It was a painful time of self-examination and self-doubt as I desperately tried to search my heart and figure out what was going on and how I had gotten there.
And so what was my experience?
Some people say it’s demonic. Others say it’s emotional hysteria. I look back at myself, all my friends and my entire former church, many of whom spoke in tongues, and at this point I don’t believe it was demonic.
Was I caught up in the moment and, due to emotional manipulation, worked myself up to the point where it burst forth? Was it a psychosomatic reflex- my body birthing what my mind wanted so badly? I think it’s likely some of that.
In retrospect, I can see how maybe that initial gift of tongues may have been brought about by a heightened emotional state, but afterward? On the bus? At work? Was I that self-deceived?
I have come to terms with the fact that I was, and it probably was a learned behavior stemming from the pressure I was under and the unyielding desire to fit in and experience God, coupled with my own flesh. I think I was encouraged to produce sounds that my brain could then take hold of in an unconscious way and create strings of syllables to speak forth, and once I learned how to do that, I was able to keep it up, reinforced through repetition, I think that might account for the riffs and improvisations that I tended to use. I think that’s probably about it.
The point is this: I became convinced that it was not for today, and because I am committed to binding my conscience to the word of God, I’ve stopped speaking in them.
It was an achingly hard thing to do- when everything in your experience tells you that it is good and right, and holy, and an angelic prayer language to the creator of the world himself. When you can still say and speak them. But have to take that and say “regardless of what my feelings, desires and experiences tell me, I have a higher authority and I must be obedient to it.”
It’s been about six years (Edit. Now sixteen years) since I’ve spoken in tongues, and I have no plans to ever try to speak in them again. In the years since, any and all desire to speak in them has vanished. I don’t think of them as a private prayer language that I let go cold and die from disuse but rather as a childish thing from another life that I’ve shrugged off and have been set free from.
******************************
For a brief period of time, speaking in tongues was a sign in the early church and was a legitimate movement of God. However I Corinthians says: “Tongues shall cease,” and that did indeed happen for nearly 2,000 years.There is no prominent indication that “tongues” was a gift throughout the church age. What we are seeing today is mere emotionalism without His anointing, masquerading as the Holy Spirit. Tongues is listed once at the end of only one of the three lists of gifts in the New Testament, and false prophets suggest that you are not spiritually mature or not even saved if you cannot share in their Pig Latin. This is more proof to the spiritually discerning that the Lord is not in this movement. There are more articles on tongues in this blogsite under the category “Charismatic Chaos.” In Christ, Pastor Steve <><
Like me, you may know exactly when you received certain wounds that left scars.
A small scar on my wrist is the result of a fellow middle-school band member plowing me over in his haste.
Another on my elbow is from the time a driver mistook the gas pedal for the brakes and slammed into our van.
And a third comes from a surgery.
Perhaps you also have mental and emotional scars from the pain of sickness, loss, or death. The wonderful, healing news is that, as the song “The Only Scars in Heaven” by Casting Crowns affirms, the only scars in heaven will belong to Jesus. In that place, we won’t be broken or wounded. We have the hope of a life without doubts, fears, mental anguish, or physical pain. We’ll be with Jesus, made new (Revelation 21:4).
After Jesus’ death and resurrection, He appeared to His disciples and showed them the scars in His hands and side (John 20:20). Thomas wasn’t there, so he doubted the news (v. 25). Jesus returned and told him to touch His scars and not “be faithless any longer” (v. 27). His doubts gone, Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28).
Jesus died to take our sins away. His scars identify Him as the Lamb who was slain for us! (Revelation 5:6). We can believe and rejoice and be filled with hope, for one day He’ll hold us in His nail-scarred hands.
Alyson Kieda
What emotional or mental wounds do you still bear? How have you experienced healing through Jesus?
Dear Jesus, thank You for being scarred for me. Help me to rejoice in You.
“Who is this stranger?” A college student in Georgia (USA) asked that question when a fellow student texted him saying a DNA test showed they could be brothers.
Separated by adoption almost twenty years earlier, the young man texted a reply in which he asked what name the other student had been given at birth. He immediately answered, “Tyler.” Replied the other, “Yes!!! You are my brother!” He was recognized by his name.
Consider how a name plays a key role in the Easter story. As it unfolds, Mary Magdalene comes to Christ’s tomb, and she weeps when she finds His body missing. “ ‘Dear woman, why are you crying?’ Jesus asked her” (John 20:15). She didn’t recognize Him, however, until He spoke her name, “Mary” (v. 16).
Hearing Him say it, she “cried out, ‘Rabboni!’ (which is Hebrew for ‘Teacher’)” (v. 16). Her reaction expresses the hope and joy believers in Jesus feel on Easter morning, recognizing that our risen Christ conquered death for all, knowing each of us as His children. As He told Mary, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (v. 17).
In Georgia, two reunited brothers bonded by name, have vowed to take “this relationship to the next level.” On Easter, we praise Jesus for already taking the utmost step to rise in sacrificial love for those He knows as His own. For you and me, indeed, He’s alive!
Patricia Raybon
How does it feel knowing that Jesus rose again and knows you by name? How can you know Him better?
Your knowledge of me is humbling, dear Jesus. Thank You for the sacrificial gift of Your knowing love and the hope of eternal life with You.
In 1986, Sir David Suchet, the English actor known for playing detective Hercule Poirot, began a quest to understand the resurrection of Jesus.
Wondering what would happen after he died, he began reading the book of Romans. After twenty years of careful consideration, he committed fully to believing in Jesus.
“Without the resurrection there is no faith,” Suchet concluded, echoing Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Thus, he observed, what he believes “is based not only on the death, the crucifixion, of Jesus, but also on the resurrection.”
The miracle of Jesus rising from the dead, Suchet said, is what gives us hope and points to Him being both human and God.
When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, which he’d founded and lived with for eighteen months, he was concerned over reports of division and a waning belief in the resurrection. He stated: “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).
Not only did Jesus die and rise again, but so would His believers as well. If the church at Corinth didn’t hold on to this hope, then they would be pitied “more . . . than anyone in the world” (v. 19).
When God helps us to trust that Jesus rose from the dead, we can delight in the assurance that we’ll live with Him forever. And that’s a wonderful conclusion to a worthy quest.
Amy Boucher Pye
How does knowing that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive give you hope and shape you in the way you live? Why does this matter?
Risen Christ, thank You for dying on the cross and rising to new life. I rejoice in the life I have with You. ive? Why does this matter?
Standing trial for the “crime” of writing about his nation’s unprovoked invasion of another, the journalist made his final statement. Yet he didn’t defend himself.
Instead, he spoke boldly. “The day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate,” he said, “when at the official level it will be recognized that two times two is still four; when a war will be called a war.”
With irrepressible confidence, he continued: “This day will come as inevitably as spring follows even the coldest winter.
”World events often seem irrevocably bleak. Lies and violence are the way of the world. It’s nothing new.
A thousand years before Jesus’ crucifixion, the psalmist David wrote of the Messiah he awaited: “The kings of the earth prepare for battle; . . . against the Lord and against his anointed one” (Psalm 2:2).
God merely laughs (v. 4). The rightful King would one day “break them with an iron rod” (v. 9). David wrote, “Be warned, you rulers of the earth! Serve the Lord with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling” (vv. 10-11). The arrest and crucifixion of Jesus was the worst human rights atrocity ever, yet it’s through that travesty of justice that Christ conquered sin and death and offers us hope.
As sure as spring follows winter, the darkness is dissipating, fleeing before the Light of the World. “What joy for all who take refuge in him!” (v. 12).
Tim Gustafson
What events tempt you to despair? Where and how do you experience the Light of the World today?
Precious Savior, may Your light flood this dark world and give us hope for a future with You.
Sok Ching had just recovered from Covid-19 when her aged mother took a fall. Days later, her mother died.
Then her estranged husband filed for divorce and threatened to fight for custody of their young son.
Sok Ching felt like she was going through a desert, totally drained of life. Where is God? she wondered. Does He know what I’m going through?
She found it tough even to pray. Then Exodus 2:23-25 came to mind. The Israelites were suffering a multitude of troubles: an oppressive pharaoh, cruel slave masters, their sons were being killed.
They must have asked the same question: “Where is God?”
But He was there: “God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant . . . . He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act” (vv. 24-25). Though their deliverance would come forty years later, the Israelites were assured that God knew their pain and would respond.
As Sok Ching read from her journal, it reminded her of the time God helped her take care of her mom, strengthened her when her husband left her, and encouraged her as a single mother. And she recalled how Jesus went to the cross for us.“
It gives me hope,” she said, “knowing that God is there for me in the desert.” She could declare in confidence, “God is there. And He remembers.”
Leslie Koh
How has God helped you through tough times in the past? How can you draw strength from His promises?
Father, You know what I’m going through, and You know my pain and worry. I know You care for me. Help me to keep trusting in You.
When Raza saw a man sweeping his street, he felt sorry for him and gave him some money. The man thanked him and asked Raza if he could pray for him.
Surprised, Raza wondered how to answer, feeling conflicted but wanting to make the man happy. He consented and the sweeper prayed, giving thanks for the money and for Raza, saying “God, please show him the way, the truth and the life.
”Raza was puzzled by the prayer but forgot about it. Yet six years later, “God changed my life,” he said, when he came to know Jesus as his Savior. Suddenly he understood that God had answered the sweeper’s prayer, for in Jesus Raza had found the way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus told His friends on the night before He died that they would know “the way to where I am going” (John 14:4). Thomas questioned how they could know the way because they didn’t know where He was going. Jesus responded: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (v. 6). He assured them that if they knew Him, they would also know the Father (v. 7).
Jesus breaks down the barriers and brings us into His Father’s presence. He’s the way to a fulfilled life; He’s the truth that sets us free; He gives us life, love, and hope.
Amy Boucher Pye
How might God inspire you to pray for others, perhaps even a stranger on the street? How have you seen Him answer someone’s prayers for you?
Dear Jesus, You’re the way, the truth, and the life. Thank You for taking me to the Father through Your work on the cross.
George had a passion for telling others about Jesus. He organized a gospel crusade in his high school. In college, he recruited two of his friends to distribute the Bible in Mexico. George Verwer later founded the international ministry Operation Mobilization.
Successful though he was, Verwer was aware of mistakes he made. In his book Messiology, he wrote, “I believe history will show that God was doing way more in the midst of our messes than we realized at the time.”
Jesus said something to Peter on the evening of the Last Supper that would affirm Verwer’s contention.
About to wash Peter’s feet, Christ said, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will” (John 13:7). Intriguingly, Peter’s “mess” hadn’t happened yet: “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me” (v. 38).
But it was a much bigger mess that Jesus was referring to: the sin of all mankind. The disciples didn’t know that God was doing something far greater than they realized.
In living for Jesus, we may find ourselves in our own “messiology.” Even in our best work, we make mistakes, mess things up, and fall into despair.
But Jesus tells His disciples, “I am the Messiah” (v. 19). That gives us real hope. We may not know what God is doing, but we should trust in who He is. He’s way more than what we understand.
Kenneth Petersen
What in your life is hard to understand? How are God’s purposes confusing to you?
Dear God, please help me accept that Your ways are not always known to me.
Author Susan Cain’s research revealed that people played the happy songs on their playlists an average of 175 times but the sad songs 800 times. What is it about sad music that’s so compelling for many?
Cain suggests it has to do with our hunger for longing—“joy that’s laced with sorrow. Which is often triggered when we experience something so exquisite that it seems to come to us from some other world. . . . Except it only lasts a moment, and we really want to live there for good.
”Longing, Cain argues, is inseparable from passion and love, for “the place you suffer is the exact same place where you care desperately.” So instead of fearing our pain, Cain suggests that our longing can point us “in the direction of the sacred.
”Cain’s insights remind me of how Paul describes how “the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay” (Romans 8:21). While Jesus has already defeated sin and death, we still wait for His victory to be seen in its fullness in all of creation.
That day isn’t here yet. We live in hope, and “if we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it” (v. 24). But as we wait, we experience joy and hope in the longing, as the Spirit carries and strengthens us in God’s love (vv. 26-27, 39).
Monica La Rose
When have you experienced joy and sorrow simultaneously? How can longing connect us to hope?
Precious Father, thank You for filling my heart with longing for You and the beauty of Your kingdom. Help that hope to anchor my heart.
Even Steven 