Happy Easter ... but don't let it end with today ...

Sin washed away ... the tomb is empty ... death is beaten ... oh happy day!

It's Easter Sunday, and I'm kind of bugged this a.m. ... Don't get me wrong, I'm living a life of joy because of the empty tomb and life eternal given to us who believe, follow and trust God in Christ by His grace, mercy and love.

But a lot of us -- me, too -- will go to church today, hear the Gospel preached, sing songs of praise, say all the right things, maybe be nice to the one or two people we can't stand ... and then we go home and ... nothing has really changed. It's like we talked a good game on Easter Sunday, but when the game really starts on Monday, we got no game (pardon my grammar).

I mean, what good is it to shout God's praises if we don't live a life of justice, of letting His righteousness flow through us to help other people? To do that is really fake of us, and not at all God-honoring. (Amos 5:21-24)

And what were we saved for if we keep acting like the world does, loving what the world does, and in the process, God is shoved in the backseat, to the point that He's not even relevant in our lives -- except on Sunday, and even then, it's just window dressing? (1 Corinthians 15:1-34, especially the last 5 verses)

I don't want to let this be an Easter where I go to service thinking, "Yeah, I've heard the story before -- I've even preached it. So I'm going to mentally check out through the sermon today."

Instead, I -- we all who call ourselves followers of Jesus, we all who claim to call ourselves Christians -- should hold on fast every moment to the Gospel we have been taught ... otherwise, we believe in vain ... (1 Corinthians 15:1-2)

Shout unto God with a voice of truimph ... lift His name up by the way we live daily ...

With love in Jesus ...

Alan

Hillsong United "Shout Unto God"