Easter Sunday Under Confinement

Easter Sunday under confinement

Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, we will be home, in my 78 years on planet earth, it will to my knowledge be the first time I have missed being at a place of worship on Easter Sunday.  It was not at a place of worship where I came to an understanding of my need of a Redeemer. 

It was in a motel in Victoria, Texas, after coming back from a bar.  I was full of knowledge about God, I believed in Jesus, I believed He was the Son of God, I believed He was born of a Virgin, I believed He died and rose again being my payment for sin.  I was also a Baptist, a member of a local church, I had walked the aisle and said the words, but it was not an act of repentance but embarrassment.

My barber of 13 years had really changed, I was giving credit to his wife because he had just got married, but I was wrong, he had an encounter with Jesus Christ.  I remember him asking me to attend a Bible study at lunch time at the Holiday Inn in Corpus Christi, I about fail out of the chair.  I went, not because I wanted to be at a Bible Study, but to see why this man I admired would want to do so.  I was so embarrassed when I got in the line to get our food and these men all had a Bible under their arms.  I prayed a prayer asking God to not allow anyone who knew me to see me with these religious guys.  I made a decision I would never come back, and that was the last haircut Bob Keese would ever give me.  I was wrong on both things for it was as if a magnet drew me back each week and it did for six months.

But that night the hounds of heaven were after me and I opened the motel Bible and it opened to Romans 10:9-10, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”  That night I knew God was in the room with me, and I bowed my knee to His will and confessed my need  of a Redeemer, He invaded my life, and I became a new creation in Christ.  I experienced Grace, I brought not one thing to God, but that night because of the blood of Jesus Christ my sins that were many were for given and I was free.

The sad news is, and I’ve confessed, I’m a mess, He is still refining me to be like His Son.  It breaks my heart to think about the many times I rebelled and broke fellowship with my Father, but He never broke our Relationship.  I was His child, and often he disciplined me.

Let me share with you a small part of a letter from Oz Hillman, it begins with this Scripture, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“Satan always defines your life based on your past; God defines you by your future.”

Have a great Easter if you need a place to Worship online, try Oakwoodnb.com services online 8:00 a.m., 9:15 and 10:45.  USA Central Time Zone

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice