From The Pastor's Study

"So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” (Luke 24:33,34)

I recently read a story I want to share with you:

When an unmarried older lady name Nancy died, the editor of the local newspaper couldn’t think of anything good to write about her; neither could he think of anything bad. When the editor met the tombstone maker of the town, he experienced the same difficulty.

The editor returned to his office and asked the sports editor what he could say about Nancy. He wrote the following epitaph:

Here lies the bones of Nancy Jones

For her, life held no terrors.
She lived an old maid;

She died an ole maid,
No hits, no runs, no errors.

Here’s the point of the story. It’s a sorry Christian life that is based on not’s, no’s and don’ts. There is a place for the negative and certainly the Bible itself tells us there are certain things we should avoid. But that’s not the main point.

We sometimes hear something like this: “We don’t smoke and we don’t chew, and we don’t run with those who do.” The problem is, we don’t become holy based solely on the things that we don’t do.

We need a remedy for sin and this remedy has been provided by Jesus Christ. The message of Easter is that Christ has risen and through faith in His finished work at Calvary, we have life eternal. We can’t work to gain our home in heaven because it’s “Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:5)

The message of Easter does not revolve around what we don’t do; it does not revolve around negatives. It revolves around our positive acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior.

He rose from the dead and so can we, if we only believe.

Pastor Larry Rickard