Baskets, Bonnets and Bunnies

April 16, 2022Blog, Personal Growth, Sunday Sermonsabundant life, Easter, make disciples, new lifedebio7 Leave a comment

Easter 2022

I very much agree with the two thirds of voters in the U.S. who believe that the moral lessons of Passover and Easter are important to “ensuring a strong America for future generations”. So allow me to share three lessons today, based on baskets, bonnets and bunnies.

Easter baskets, as you know are a special basket made and used at Easter, filled with eggs, food, toys, or other colorful gifts. Whether they really are meant to pay homage to the pagan goddess of Spring and fertility, Eostre, and the image of her holding a basket on her arm, is not my point. My point simply is, these Easter baskets are usually filled with all sorts of good things!

Lesson 1 – Because of what Jesus did on the cross and by His resurrection from death, He has provided everything that we need. A basket of sorts, filled with good things, for this life and the eternal one to come.

“… seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”
2 Peter 1:2 NASB

” I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
John 10:10 NASB

God offers you the most colorful and abundant life basket, filled with the most powerful realities, promises, adventures, challenges, & relationships that you could ever imagine.

Easter bonnets – Wearing a new or fancy hat at Easter represents wearing new clothes for Easter and the new Spring season with its renewal. It represents offering our best on Easter. Irving Berlin made famous the Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, as he sang of the Easter parade that followed this display of new clothes, down 5th Avenue from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC. During the Depression, a new hat or refurbished one represented a simple luxury.

Lesson 2 – New hats and clothes are but trappings for the whole new life that Jesus offers us. A brand new way of thinking, being, doing and living – He made us a new creature from the inside out. THIS is lasting and won’t ever wear out or need to be refurbished. It is a life-long luxury. He offered His best for us!

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB

” Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father. so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:4 NASB

Have you received the new life that Jesus purchased for you? Are you living your best life?

Easter bunnies – I’m sorry, but the first thing I think about with bunny rabbits is their superior reproductive abilities. After all, it is the European rabbit that has the distinction of being the number one mammal for reproduction. Cuniculturists (those who breed and raise domestic rabbits) tell us that rabbits draw little distinction between sexual behavior and social behavior. Humph… No wonder a female can potentially deliver up to 60 young a year! (Of course, an average 31 day gestation period helps, too.)

Lesson 3 – I want to steal the phrase, “Breed like rabbits.” As Christians, we have been given a job to do, go multiply and make disciples. We are to reproduce – especially spiritually.

” Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Genesis 1:28 NASB

” Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19-20 NASB

Perhaps, between now and next Easter, we could commit to share our faith with others and reproduce disciples for Christ!? It is what we’ve been designed to do.

This and every Easter may we ensure a strong America for future generations by remembering the moral lessons of baskets, bonnets and bunnies.

He is Risen, indeed!

Debbie

Incomprehensible

April 8, 2020Blog, Encouragement, InspirationEaster, incomprehensible, unbelievabledebio7 4 Comments

It all started with a discussion about the size of 2.2 trillion (dollars).

While listening to and trying to digest it all, I realized, I had no real understanding of the number 1 trillion. Much less 2.2 trillion. So I did what every serious scholar and academically driven researcher does, I googled it. 🙂

After much mind numbing reading about zeros, exponents, and viewing diagrams of stacking bills on pallets, here are my 2 take aways:

1. If you spent $1,000 a day, it would take you 2.7 million years to spend 1 trillion dollars. And you would still have lots left over!

2. If you stacked $100. bills to equal 1 trillion, the stack would be 789 miles high. That is equal to 144 Mount Everest’s stacked on top of each other.

Bottom line for my mind, a trillion is incomprehensible.

But it really got me thinking about other things that are incomprehensible.

The universe, for example.

part of our universe. we’re in there somewhere

Scientists don’t even use the term universe. It’s been more accurately described as the “observable universe” because there is more than what we actually see. It’s size, they say, is 93 million light years in diameter. (For those that slept through Science class, remember, a light year is the distance light travels in a year or about 10 trillion km! (Really 9,500,000,000,000 km!) There’s that trillion again… Incomprehensible!

We live in a galaxy we know as The Milky Way. And to us, it’s really big. But geesh, we live on ONE of it’s 4 arms, called Orion, in a system called The Solar System, on a planet called Earth, on a continent called North America, nation called America, state called _____, county called _____ , city called _____, on a street called _____, and finally to OUR house at _____ . The size of all that is incomprehensible.

Consider too, our galaxy is but one of 350 billion large galaxies in the Milky Way! It houses 30 billion -trillion stars. (30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.) To put this in perspective, if you were to go out of the city and look into the sky, you would maybe see 2,500 stars. But there are actually 80 million times MORE STARS in the Milky Way and beyond.

There are actually 28 times more stars in the galaxy than the 7.2 billion people on the Earth. Another comparison, there are 1 billion cars on Earth – for every car there are 200 galaxies in the observable universe. Plus, there are 40 billion, Earth sized planets that could sustain human life. (Maybe we’re NOT alone in the universe???)

Again, all of these numbers are incomprehensible! My brain hurts.

One last incomprehensible thing for you to think about.

GOD’S LOVE

The very Creator, who made all those galaxies, stars, planets, universe, both observable and beyond; the One who gives man the ability to deal with trillions of dollars and understand what he is doing; that God – LOVES YOU and me. I’m floored that he even notices us, with how small and insignificant we are compared to the details of a universe. But he does notice us, knows us and loves us. THAT is unfathomable, inscrutable, and yes, incomprehensible.

” …I pray that you be able to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…”
The Apostle Paul

Other writers have described God’s love this way:

everlasting
caring
slow to anger
never ending
affectionate
will never leave you alone
no barrier can separate us from God’s love

God’s love for us is so unimaginable, incomprehensible that He sent His only Son into the world, that we might have life through him, who was our sacrifice. I John 4:9-10

Jesus coming to Earth was a demonstration of God’s love for us. Jesus’ living here and brutal death on the cross was a demonstration of God’s incomprehensible love for us. Who would do that?

The suffering Jesus endured before crucifixion and later suffocating as he hung on that cross was pure and simple torture! It is incomprehensible.

When you have time, check out this video I made, about just that. (9 minutes)

Jesus’ crucifixion

God knows you, everything about you; strengths, weaknesses, good, bad, likes, dislikes, ups and down – AND HE LOVES YOU. Without measure, everlasting, carefully, caring, patiently, completely and unconditional. THAT blows my mind and is truly incomprehensible.

So, this weekend, as we celebrate Easter, I hope that you will celebrate the incomprehensible love that God demonstrated for you by sending Jesus to Earth; who lived, died and returned to life after three days! Who spent 40 days after the resurrection on Earth, was seen by over 500 people and after that was taken back up to heaven, (which was also witnessed by hundreds) where He is to this day.

Yet, to those who trust in Him, He comes to reside in their hearts as well.

Talk about incomprehensible???? My brain is exploding but my heart is overwhelming with gratitude.

Have a Happy Easter, because YOU ARE LOVED BY OUR IMCOMPREHENSIBLE GOD.

Cheers to you.