Easter is the most important festival
APART from chocolate eggs, what do we get from Easter?
For those who are Christians, Easter is the most important festival of the year and brings the greatest benefits – far greater than Christmas even!
The point of Jesus dying on the Cross and then being resurrected is to enable us to receive many things from God.
The first thing we gain is the possibility of God forgiving our sin. Romans 3:23 tells us ‘The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
Our unholy sin keeps us separate from the holy God, the two cannot be present together and so we can only go to hell when we die.
However the good news is that if we ask Jesus to forgive us He takes our sin onto Himself and also suffers the punishment for it.
This means that we don’t have any sin to answer for and the way is open for us to go to heaven when we die. Our wonderful life in heaven lasts forever – it is eternal life.
Secondly, the Holy Spirit comes into our heart and gives us the ability to live a good life. So we no longer want to be selfish, hateful, jealous, to lie, to steal, be angry or impatient.
Our lives are transformed into those of loving, kind, caring, thoughtful people.
The Holy Spirit also gives us peace and joy and enables us to feel God’s love for us so that we want to worship and appreciate Him. The peace and joy we get can reduce our feelings of depression, stress and anxiety.
The third thing we get is less fear and worry. This is because if we know that God is in our life and in control of the events in our life, what do we have to worry about? If we know that He is with us in every circumstance and always working for our good, we can have great confidence in Him whatever happens.
Now you might be thinking that all of this sounds too good to be true, but it is true.
God is not some distant horrible tyrant who just wants to rule us with a rod of iron.
He tells us that when we enter His family, He becomes our heavenly Father. This is why Jesus tells us to start our prayers with ‘Our Father...’ So Easter has many great benefits for us.
There is a cost to following the Christian life though. Jesus showed us by example that we ought to do things God’s way rather than our own way.
We will not be able to be selfish and just please ourselves in everything we do. We will be expected to be generous towards others and to think of them before we think of ourselves.
However, living this way means the world will be changed for the better and the hardship and suffering in it will be much reduced. So what happened to Jesus at Easter, opens the way for better lives and a better world.
With all of these amazing blessings from the events of Easter, why not ask Jesus into your life today?