A Family Journey To Easter Devotional
To begin… What is the story of Easter?
If you answered that it is the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are right!
BUT you might be surprised to know that this is only part of the story, and NOT where the story begins at all!
The Easter story actually starts a very, very long time before that, thousands of years before Jesus’ crucifixion and the day He rose from the dead, and is still unfolding!
This exploration of Easter will take us on a journey from the beginning of the story, all the way up to how it is unfolding today!
How can we understand the whole story? By knowing the One who wrote it!
Each day we are going to be learning one new “attribute” of God that will help to tell us the story of Easter. In case you are not sure what an “attribute” is, it is just another word for a characteristic that makes someone/something who/what they are.
For example, one attribute of God is love. God doesn’t just love us, He IS love! And His LOVE tells us one of the most important parts of the story!
You see, the story of Easter is really the story of who God is!
For this devotional, I only chose 14 attributes to tell the story of Easter… but I’m certain you could spend your entire life finding more of them! It might be fun to keep a journal or even just a piece of paper handy to write down some of the other attributes you uncover! Each day, you can read the Scripture suggestions, and then the short devotional…the puzzle pieces of the story will all begin fitting together as you go!
And when you finish (or even if you don’t finish), PLEASE read the last page of this devotion. It will tie these attributes of Jesus, and the entire amazing story of Easter, all together… so that you can know it personally!
***If you just want to see the devotional, just scroll on down and you’ll find it right below!***
Here are just a few of the other resources I’ve made to go along with this Family Devotional.
*Print out these Journey To Easter Story Hunt Cards and turn this devotional into a meaningful and FUN activity!
This would be great for your Sunday School Class or Youth Group as well!
Ideas on how to use these cards are included in the printable!
*Journey To Easter Printable PDF Version
*“He’s Alive! Family Journey to Easter Unit Study”
Daily activities that go along hand in hand with the Family Devotional.
FULL of all kinds of fun activities, stories, games, and songs
–>You can see a full sample in this post-
Family Journey To Easter Overview
* ‘Journey to Easter Coloring & Activity Printable Pack’.
116 pages of printables to go along with each day’s devotional or unit study!
*Journey to Easter BUNDLE
ALL the Journey To Easter printables in one place!
Day 1- The Living Word
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Genesis 1-2
–John 1:1-4
–Psalm 19:1-4
–John 17:5
The story of Easter begins so long ago, that we could say it began even before there was time! The story of Easter begins with God… and God has no beginning!
It’s kind of hard for me to imagine something that didn’t start somewhere. Is it for you too?
But this is the truth about God.
Before everything we know on earth began, He was.
And He was alive in a perfect place, in perfect completeness with Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
We don’t know much more about that time other than that.
Until He SPOKE!
God is ALIVE, and when He speaks, His Words bring LIFE to things everywhere!
He is… the LIVING WORD!
“God said… and it was so!”
And from that moment when He spoke, we on earth measure time. The earth began, and everything in it. Tall leafy trees, soft grassy meadows, fragrant flowers, majestic mountains, soaring skies, endless oceans… quiet butterflies, and loud roaring lions, and fuzzy bunnies, and scaly lizards, and even animals we don’t know about!
And then… He made His crowning creation.
God took some of the earth, and formed man, and He breathed HIS OWN life into man’s body! And God looked over all He had created and it was PERFECT!
Each part of His creation was reflecting His very own attributes of beauty, and perfection, and glory! And God told man to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it all.
The WORD spoke… and there was LIFE! And it was good!
Jesus, the Living Word!
Are you wondering what the creation story has to do with Easter?
It seems like a long. long time from when the earth was created all
the way to the cross, which we think of as the Easter story.
But this is where the story begins…in the Garden where
Jesus, the Living Word spoke, and everything came ALIVE!
Day 2- Holy God
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Genesis 3
–Leviticus 19:2
–1 Peter 1:15-16
–2 Timothy 1:9
–Revelation 4:8
–Romans 5:12–17
Perfection.
One of the most INCREDIBLE parts of living in the Garden was that God was there too! Did you know that Adam and Eve spent lots of time walking through the fields and forests and chatting with GOD Himself ?!? God was filled with love for His children. Living together in this perfect place with His people was God’s plan all along. He loved being with them, and they loved being with Him. They had so much JOY in spending time together in that beautiful place! EVERYTHING was right and good… until one very awful day.
I bet you know what happened. Adam and Eve listened to the sneaky, slithering, fast talking serpent, and they SINNED. They believed the lies the serpent told them and they forgot God’s words to them about ruling over His creation!
Sin means flawed.
Have you ever done something that your dad or mom told you not to do? Yep. Adam and Eve had done it. They disobeyed their “dad” (aka God), and for the first time ever, SIN entered into the perfect world God had made. They did not have “dominion” or control over themselves, and there were some pretty terrible consequences. And when God came walking in the garden like always, calling out to them, Adam and Eve HID from Him! Things were NOT right!
So, what does sin have to do with today’s attribute of God?
Holy can be a hard word to describe. Sometimes we can understand a word better by knowing what the opposite of it is. For example, if we understand what “sad” means, we can understand that “happy” is all the opposite of sad. To understand “holy”, we can say that it is the opposite of “sin”. If sin is flawed, holy is completely without ANY (not even a speck!) flaw! The two are like oil and water. Holiness and sin can’t mix together.
And so, there was a very big problem in the Garden. Can you see it?
God is perfect, He is Holy.
Adam and Eve are flawed as they sinned.
And as we know, those two things can’t mix.
What would happen to Adam and Eve?
Would they be separated from Holy God forever?
What about their perfect, beautiful home?
When Adam and Eve finally came out from the bushes where they are hiding, and God asked them what they had done, they blamed each other, they blamed the serpent, and they EVEN blamed God for their disobedience! Imagine telling your dad it was HIS fault when you did something wrong! Lots of SIN had come into the PERFECT place. Fear, lying, confusion, doubt, blame, shame…. and the most terrible thing of all, there was now separation from God, because GOD is HOLY, and holiness and sin cannot live together!
To be continued…
Day 3- Love
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Genesis 3:21-24
–1 John 4:8
–1 John 4:16
–1 Corinthians 13
–Romans 8:38-39
–1 John 4:7-12
Yesterday’s story may have left you hanging!
If Adam and Eve weren’t perfect anymore, and holy and sin can’t mix, what happened to them?! What happened to the Garden? Could Adam and Eve still talk to God? What about God’s words declaring that Adam and Eve would be the rulers over His creation?
You will read today that because of their sin, Adam and Eve learned that they could not live forever with God in their beautiful home. They had to leave. Sadness filled their hearts. Everything had changed. God made some clothing for them out of the skins of an animal (the first death that happened on the earth), and He sent them out of the Garden.
BUT…God IS love.
Can you think of a time when you disobeyed your parents? What happened?
Most likely, your parents gave you some kind of a punishment, but did your parents stop loving you? Of course not!! Adam and Eve had disobeyed their Father God, and surely there would be consequences. But just like your parents don’t stop loving you when you have done something wrong, God didn’t stop loving His children Adam and Eve either.
After they had sinned, Adam and Eve tried to hide what they had done.
They were embarrassed when they realized they were naked, and so they sewed some fig leaves together to cover themselves. I’m not sure how strong those Eden leaves were, but I’m thinking it wasn’t a very good material to make clothing out of! Their sin caused more problems than their shame though… their sin caused death to come to the earth, and no fig leaves anywhere were going to be strong enough to cover THAT!!
So, God made Adam and Eve a better COVERING for their bodies.
He made them out of the skins of an animal, maybe it was a lamb.
God knew that humans from now on were going to need something
more than fig leaves, and something more than animal skins,
to cover their sins in the future.
God knew that holy and sin can’t live together, but He wanted everything to be set RIGHT once again… He wanted to walk and talk with Adam and Eve like He did in the beginning, and He wanted the earth, and His children, all to be made PERFECT again.
God was not shaken. He had a great plan.
So the details of making a perfect, and forever kind of covering for the sins of all people, began moving forward from that day. And chapter 3 of the Easter story was written.
Day 4- Hope
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Genesis 9
–Genesis 15
–Romans 15:13
–Hebrews 10:23
–Romans 8:25
–Psalm 130:5
–Hebrews 11:1-11
So what happened to Adam and Eve after they left the Garden?
Time passed. They had some children, and their children had children, and their children’s children had children, every family with their own story to be told. As each of these families grew and spread out on the earth, towns, and cities grew too. The people lived and worked.
The lessons from their ancestors Adam and Eve were forgotten. God was forgotten.
Things on the earth became so very horrible. What God saw must have broken His heart.
The whole earth was filled with wickedness and evil. People were only thinking of doing bad things.
Out of all the humans, God only could find ONE man and his small family left on the earth who still remembered Him, and loved Him. The man’s name was Noah. You probably know his story. God told Noah that because man was destroying His beautiful creation (including other humans!) and only had the desire to do wicked things, He was going to send a great flood to COVER the whole earth, and wash it clean. God told His friend Noah however, that because Noah loved Him, that He would save him and his family.
And God ALWAYS keeps His promises…
Sure enough, after the flood was over, new LIFE sprang up again. Out of the soggy land, the trees, and grasses, and flowers grew again. God set Noah, his family, and the animals all out on dry land, and He gave them the same command as He had told Adam and Eve… God told them to go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And He told them to rule over it.
There was HOPE for the world again. God was setting things right.
After all, He is the God of HOPE!
There’s more.
As much as I’d like to stop right here with that happy ending, it wasn’t quite the end of the story.
You won’t believe it, but not very many years after Noah died, people AGAIN forgot (or just disregarded) God’s plan for them to rule the earth together with Him. They wanted to be in charge of their own lives. They didn’t want God to make the rules. They were proud and selfish. Thankfully for them, God had promised never to flood the earth again.
This time, God had a different way that He was going to bring His HOPE back to the earth.
Remember that great plan we talked about in Day 3? This is the next part of that plan…
God was very patient in carrying out His plan to repair the separation between Him (Holy) and man (sin), and restore His beloved family back to what it was like in the Garden.
Again God looked for a man on the earth that hadn’t forgotten Him, and He knew just the man for His plan! This man’s name was Abraham. God was going to take Abraham and make him the father of God’s own people. But there was one little problem… Abraham and his wife Sarah didn’t have any children, and they were old. Not a little old, but VERY old! Too old to have a baby for sure! God knew this, and it didn’t stop Him from choosing Abraham at all. NOTHING is too hard for God, not giving old people children, and not setting everything on the whole earth right again!!!
Back to the story… God made a promise to Abraham. God promised to make him the father of more children than all the stars in the sky, and all the sand on the beaches. Have you ever tried to count the stars at night, or even the grains in ONE handful of sand?
That’s A LOT of children! It was so hard to believe God’s promise, that Abraham’s wife LAUGHED at God’s promise! She had no HOPE for ever having a family.
But God…. He had a great plan!
God is the God of the impossible, and He is the GOD OF HOPE!
He was going to use Abraham and Sarah to set things right in the world once again.
NEW LIFE was going to spring up… not from the ground like after the flood, but from the new family He’d make for Himself through His promise to Abraham.
Wait till you see what happens next!
Day 5- Forgiveness
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Genesis 45-46:7
–Psalm 86:5
–Ephesians 4:32
–Colossians 3:13
–Psalm 32:5
Abraham and Sarah indeed had children.
And their children had children, and lots of them! And this beautiful bunch came to be known as Israel, the People of God. The last few days have begun with the sad stories of people on the earth FORGETTING God. But not today!!
Today the story is about one of Abraham’s great grandchildren was named Joseph.
Joseph loved God. He was one of 12 brothers in a BIG family of boys! Joseph was his father’s favorite son, which did NOT make him a favorite with his brothers, and on top of that, Joseph was a little odd. He had strange dreams sometimes. Dreams that his brothers were bowing down to him. Joseph might’ve kept that dream to himself!! Joseph’s family had a problem.
Joseph’s brothers were JEALOUS! Jealous like Cain was jealous of Abel.
One day, Joseph’s father presented him with a very beautiful, colorful coat. This was just too much. The brothers were so filled with rage and hate, and so they made a plan to kill Joseph!
What was God to do with all these children?!
These were HIS people, and an important part of His plan! Was God worried?
NO WAY! Remember the story of Abraham and Sarah? NOTHING is too hard for
God! The brothers indeed set out to kill Joseph, but God was with him.
Instead of being killed, he was carried away as a slave to Egypt.
Though this may not sound much better, it was!!
God did AMAZING things in Joseph’s life… including using him in the plan
to save His people!!
So there in Egypt, God took what was meant for evil against Joseph, hateful murderous brothers and all, and He turned it into a PICTURE of one of His own attributes. Can you guess which one?
Yes! Forgiveness!
Joseph didn’t forget who God was. He loved God. And so he forgave His brothers.
Read the story of Joseph and his brothers today.
Can you see how God taught His People about ultimate forgiveness?
Did the brother’s get what they deserved?
What happened to them at the end of this story?
Here is a review of the attributes and the journey to Easter so far:
+Day 1- The Living Word spoke the most perfect creation and family into being
+Day 2- Man lets the serpent rule and sins. God’s Holiness and man’s sin cannot mix together.
+Day 3- Man attempts to cover his own sin, but God’s Love makes a better covering
+Day 4- People grow wicked over and over again, but God is Hope and does the impossible
+Day 5- God uses forgiveness to save His people
Day 6- Almighty
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Exodus 2
–Exodus 14:21-31
–Isaiah 14:27
–Isaiah 9:6
–Jeremiah 32:17
–Ephesians 3:20
And Joseph’s children had children. And Joseph’s brother’s children had children.
They lived there in Egypt for many years in peace. They were being fruitful and multiplying and filling that part of the earth for sure! Over the years, there were SO MANY people from Joseph’s family that it made the Egyptian Pharaoh jealous! Do you see a theme of jealousy again?
The pharaoh began treating the Israelites (that was what they were called now) very cruelly, and he made them into slaves. Do you think this was the end of God’s People? No way!
God was alive, perfect in every way, and just as full of love for His people as He ever was. He was carrying out His great plan to set all things right again! The Israelites cried out to God for help. God had made a promise to Abraham to give him as many family members as the stars in the sky, and to give them the beautiful land to live in. God had not forgotten this, and He was going to keep that promise just like all the rest!! Were the Egyptians too many for God to fight against? Nope! So what do you think He did to the Egyptians that were being so wicked?
He flexed His mighty muscles and…squashed them all!
Well, no. That’s not exactly what happened. Once again, He used a man on the earth who had not forgotten Him. Instead of destroying all of the Egyptians to save His people, He sent a rescuer. This friend of God was called Moses. God used Moses in amazing ways to show the people on the earth just how POWERFUL He was! He wanted those Egyptians (and His own People) to see that He alone had power over EVERYTHING! He even used a freakish amount of frogs to make His might known… but you’ll read about that in today’s Scripture.
Nothing and no one could stop God’s plans from happening!
Not Pharaoh, not power, not riches, and not a single one of the
Egyptian’s gods…not even THE RED SEA!
God is ALL MIGHTY
Day 7- Patient
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–1 Timothy 1:16
–2 Peter 3:9
–2 Peter 3:15
–Proverbs 14:29
–Colossians 1:10-11
–Ephesians 4:2
Years passed. God was very patient with His people.
After a whole lot of wrong turns, complaining, wandering around, and a whole lot of lessons learned about the attributes of God, the family Israel had finally made it into the beautiful land that God had promised them. It was great! What more could they want?
Well actually…
The people were already forgetting how powerfully God had cared for them in the wilderness, how lovingly He gave them shelter and fed them, never leaving them. Are you even surprised ?! Now the people wanted something more!! They wanted a king.
Did they remember what a MIGHTY and HOLY and LOVING King they already had?
Nope.
They wanted a king that they could vote for. A king that they could cheer for.
A king to sit on a throne and be their leader.
They wanted a king that they could SEE!
Because God is so very PATIENT with His people, He sent one of His friends named Samuel to REMIND them that they already had a King, one they could always count on. He would always be their King, and He would be a good one! But the people’s hearts were set on a different kind of king, “Give us a king!!” they demanded.
And so He did.
King Saul was made the leader of God’s People.
At first the people loved Saul. They were proud of their king…
until their king got proud. He was not the same kind of king as God for sure.
But they had asked for a king, and stubbornly set their hearts on having
one other than God. The people believed that they had a better plan
than God’s plan.
God is so PATIENT.
And just like He waited for His people in the wilderness, lovingly leading them back toward KNOWING Him, He would be patient and kind to them again as He waited for them to realize this. He would treat them just like a Good Shepherd, guiding them to a good place.
How?
Just like He usually did. He’d use one of His friends on the earth. Do you remember how God sent Joseph to show what kind of forgiveness He has, and Moses to show in person how POWERFUL He is? Well in today’s story, God sent a kid shepherd named David to show His People just how PATIENT He is… even when they think they know more than He does.
So are YOU getting a little impatient waiting to see what this has to do with Easter?
Today, we are halfway to seeing all the puzzle pieces of God’s great plan
fitting together. Hang in there!
Day 8- All Knowing
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Psalm 139:1-4
–Psalm 147:4-5
–1 John 3:20
–Luke 12:7
–2 Samuel 22:31
–Colossians 2:3
Omniscient.
What kind of word is THAT?! It’s a hard word to pronounce, and even harder to spell!
Thankfully, the meaning of the word “omniscient” isn’t too hard to understand. Omniscient simply means “all knowing”. Today we are going to hear about a man named Isaiah. He wasn’t omniscient, but he was another one of God’s friends who helped people know God better, and carried out his part in the great plan.
Know it alls.
In our story yesterday, we saw how often God’s people think they know even more than God does. They reallllly wanted that king, and even though God told them that it was a bad idea, they thought they knew better than He did. And if we go all the way back to the beginning of this study, we see how Adam and Eve thought that the fruit was ok to eat even if God had warned them against it… and how they thought that their homemade fig skirts would be sufficient to cover their sins up. Man is proud. Man thinks he knows it all. We saw Abraham do it, we saw Moses do it, and we even saw David do it. Thankfully, God is patient, and He loves us. And so once again, He will send His People someone who will set things right again.
And so, God used Isaiah to show His people that HE is omniscient…
He is God, and no matter what the people thought, He alone knows it ALL!
And because God knows EVERYTHING, He saw the bad direction His People were going in.
He knew they were wandering away from Him once again. So God used Isaiah’s voice to talk to His People and warn them. He told them that they He saw that they had forgotten
Him and were running away and hiding from Him
(like Adam and Eve did). He also told them how
much He loved them. He told them that they
BELONGED to Him, and that even in their sin He loved
them SO MUCH, that He was going to send someone
to rescue them and make things right again.
Isaiah declared from God that their rescuer would be Wonderful and ALL MIGHTY, and He would be their King forever.
Sadly, most of the people refused to listen to Isaiah… just like the people didn’t want to listen to Noah, and the Pharaoh didn’t want to listen to Moses.
But God knew this too. Nothing is impossible for Him, and His plan would succeed even if the people Isaiah spoke to refused to hear.
God is Omniscient.
He knows the best way. We can trust Him.
Day 9- Meek
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Matthew 5:5
–Matthew 11:29
–Isaiah 53:7
–Philippians 2:8
–Psalm 37:11
It was time.
God doesn’t tell time like we do. Maybe this is because He has no beginning or ending, or because He is so patient, or because He KNOWS all things. And now we come to the place in our story, when He said, NOW is the time!
Time for what?
It was time for the next part in His plan to rescue His people to happen… the very same plan that was set into motion in the Garden of Eden. Do you know what part of the story comes now?
Well, it starts off like pretty much all the other chapters of our journey. God picked a friend of His, who had not forgotten about Him, to show His people even a more about Himself, and tell them that He was coming to set things right. Have you noticed that is how He has been working out His plan for all those years?
This time He used a young girl named Mary. Mary had been waiting and HOPING for God to come to the earth and be the King of His people once again. All of Israel was hoping for the same thing to happen, but they were getting tired of waiting. A very, very long time had passed since God had spoken to His people through His friends like Isaiah, and at the moment, God’s People were under the tough rule of Caesar Augustus and the Roman Empire.
And at this moment, God chose Mary, and He gave her the most incredible honor of birthing Jesus! God SO wanted people to KNOW HIM, that He took a part of Himself, and birthed it into the world… as a precious, helpless, little human BABY!
What?!
God who is ALL MIGHTY, and HOLY, and ALL KNOWING was born as a
human? AND, as we will read in Mary’s story today, Jesus was not born in a
palace as a King, but He was born in a small, over crowded town, where
there was not a single hospital or even a hotel room to be found.
He was born in a stinky, itchy, animal barn!
Him! God!
The King of Kings, born in a barn, and with human skin on!
Yes!
The King of Kings decided that was exactly how He was going to carry out His great plan. Humbly, because God is meek.
In Jesus’ birth, we SEE what the word meek means.
God, with all His endless power, CHOSE to veil it, and become a human.
While the word “meek” rhymes with the word “weak”, they do not mean the same thing.
Meekness is choosing to restrain your power for a good end.
But WHY did God do this?
The answer is the same as it has been since the beginning of His creation.
We’ve seen it repeated over and over again in these stories.
Everything God created was PERFECT…
And then He created man… And He loved us with all His heart.
But people wanted more.
They wanted to make themselves equal to Him, they wanted to do things their own way, they wanted a different kind of king, they wanted everything that God warned them about.
Remember how Holy and sin can’t mix?
He is Holy, and sin was keeping His people separated from Him. But God wasn’t ruffled.
He had a plan! And we can see it all coming together now!
He saw our disobedience, and He loved us still.
So, if restraining His glory, and power, and majesty for awhile in the body of a man would help us know the way back to Him, then that’s what He was willing to do…because God is LOVE. And God is MEEK.
So He sent His perfect Son into the very imperfect world, restraining His infinite power, just to set things right for the people He loved.
Day 10- Sovereign
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Jeremiah 32:17
–Psalm 115:3
–Proverbs 19:21
–Acts 5:39
–Job 42:2
God is SOVEREIGN.
Sovereign is another difficult kind of word, but we can just say that it means that God is in control of absolutely EVERYTHING! It is a little bit like ALL MIGHTY and ALL KNOWING together in one word. Have you ever sung the song, “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands”? Well that is a song about God being sovereign.
We will jump back into our story from yesterday to see how Sovereign God kept His plan going when some people wanted to stop it! Soon after Jesus was born, a jealous king ONCE AGAIN tried to stop God’s plan to rescue His people from sin and set things right again.
This story is going to seem very familiar. Remember when the jealous Pharaoh made the Israelites slaves? And he set his stubborn heart against God and His People, and wouldn’t let them leave Egypt? Well today’s story is about an even more wicked, jealous, and stubborn king, named Herod. Even though he was already ruling as a powerful king on the throne in Jerusalem, He heard about the little baby Jesus, born in a stinky animal barn, who was thought to be the long awaited King of the Jewish people. And do you know what He did?
He was so angry, and jealous, and evil, that because he didn’t know exactly where this future king named Jesus was, he set a decree that all Jewish baby boys under 2 years old must be KILLED! He wanted to kill Jesus so He couldn’t ever be the king, and he was willing to kill thousands of other Jewish babies to get it done. Can you even imagine anything so devilish?
But God is sovereign.
NOTHING and NOBODY can stop what God wants to do!
His plan from the beginning was moving forward quickly now.
The separation between His holiness, and our sinfulness, was already being made right, and the way back to Him was almost complete.
Day 11- Lord
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Matthew 4:1-11
–Hebrews 4:15
–Isaiah 9:6
–Deuteronomy 10:17
–2 Corinthians 5:21
–Revelation 17:14
Lord- A master; a person possessing supreme power and authority
God made man and He blessed them and said to them,
“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and have dominion over it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28)
Are you wondering why today’s lesson is starting all the way at the beginning, when we’ve come so far in the story now?
Hang with me. Do you remember that God’s plan for His people from the beginning was for them to ENJOY the beauty of everything He created and to RULE over it?
But Adam and Eve failed to do that when they listened to the serpent and disobeyed God… and all the people that came after them have also failed. Even Noah and Abraham and Joseph and Moses and David. They all fell short. And for thousands of years the sin of the People of God left them separated from the Holy God. Until now… until Jesus.
Jesus was born in human skin like us, and He grew up. Perfectly.
He stubbed his toe. He played with His brothers. He made His bed and washed dishes.
And He did it all without ever disobeying God. Ever. Not even ONCE!
Have you ever been able to go even ONE day without doing something wrong? Me neither. Once, when Jesus was a man, He went into the desert by Himself to pray. He knew that it was almost time for THE BIG PART of God’s plan to happen.
It was going to be hard.
Jesus was fully God, but He was also fully a human man. He was going to suffer a lot and He knew it…AND Jesus’ old enemy, the serpent, knew too. He met Jesus in the desert while He was praying there. Satan tried as hard as he
could, with every lie and trick he had, to make Jesus sin. But Jesus didn’t sin.
He did what no man before Him did… He had DOMINION over that sneaky old serpent!
Jesus said NO to all of his false promises and lies.
He did it! Jesus is the LORD over sin!
Day 12- Just
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Psalm 9:16
–1 John 1:9
-Isaiah 30:18
–Matthew 27:45-55
–John 19:16-37
Over the next few years, Jesus made some very close friends.
They recognized who Jesus was. They knew He was the One, the King, that the Jewish people had been waiting and hoping for. They knew that He came out from God!
They loved Jesus very much, and He loved them very much too! For several years, they went everywhere together telling anyone who would listen the AMAZING news that the King had come back for His people, and was going to set them free!
During this time, God used Jesus to show people what HE was like. Jesus perfectly showed the attributes of God to man. He showed them that He was Almighty as He made the wind and the sea obey His commands, He showed them He was All Knowing by answering their questions before they even asked Him. He showed them He was Lord over everything by healing diseases, and making bread multiply, and even by causing a man who had been dead for four whole days to come back to life!
But they hadn’t yet seen the biggest picture of Him… the picture of His LOVE!
When you close your eyes and think of what LOVE is, what do you see?
Do you think of hearts, hugs, your family, or that wonderful feeling of warmth ?
God had a different picture in mind of how to show people His attribute of love.
His picture would be NOTHING like what we would’ve chosen.
It was the picture of Jesus, who had never done anything wrong, tortured and suffering, and hanging on an ugly, wooden cross. The cross was the Roman’s worst penalty for those who had broken the law. It was reserved for the worst of the worst criminals.
So WHY was Jesus, the One who was absolutely PERFECT, hung on that cross?
It seems so unfair… so UNJUST!
The truth is that it wasn’t just (right). But Jesus was JUST.
Jesus was not a criminal. He had done nothing wrong. Ever.
Jesus was JUST, perfect in every way. And He was the ONLY one who was!
No other man had been able to live a sinless life and bridge the separation between God’s Holiness and man’s sinfulness. Only Jesus.
And because God is Sovereign He knew this from the beginning when His great plan began.
NOTHING was going to stop His plan to rescue His people from sin. Jesus’ death on the cross was part of the plan from the beginning when sin entered into the world and separated the people He loved from being with Him.
Remember those fig leaves Adam and Eve tried to sew together to cover up their sin?
Remember how God had to give them something better for a covering, and the first innocent animal in the garden was sacrificed for it’s skin, to cover Adam and Eve?
From that first sin, death had entered the world. And it had been happening to everyone ever since. And God, who knows everything, knew way back then, that they were going to need something more… fig leaves don’t really cover anything up, and animal skins were only temporary. And so He sent Jesus for the mission. Jesus was the ONLY ONE who could pay the price as a sacrifice (like that first animal) to COVER the sins of all the People that separated them from God. Why was He the only one who could ?
Because He is JUST.
Day 13- Alive
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–John 20
–1 Corinthians 15:20
–Revelation 1:18
–John 10:10
–1 Corinthians 15:57
-John 11:25
–Romans 6:4
Can you imagine how terribly sad all of Jesus’ friends and family were when He died?
Their beautiful friend, the one they just KNEW was their King that had come from God, the one who had POWER over everything, and had done so many miracles in front of their eyes, was dead. Beaten. It was all so shocking, and so unfair. Jesus friends must have been confused.
And now it was over. Or was it?
One morning, on the third day after Jesus had died, Mary Magdalene and some of Jesus’ other friends went to the place where He was buried. But something was strange. The giant rock that had been pushed in front of the tomb had rolled away. And when they looked inside Jesus’ body wasn’t there! Before they could wonder about what had happened for very long, an angel appeared to them, and gave them the absolute best news… Jesus isn’t in the tomb anymore.
Jesus is ALIVE!
And He was indeed ALIVE!
Mary saw Him. Peter and John and all the rest of His friends saw Him. And hundreds of other people did too! While they had certainly seen Jesus suffer and die, they also were seeing Him alive again! There was NO DOUBT about it!
NOTHING could stop Jesus! NOTHING could stop God’s plan!
And in this attribute today, we can see one of the most beautiful pictures of God!
He did it! He WON!! He beat all of the serpent’s plots to make Him sin!
God is not dead, He is ALIVE! He is not far from us. He is not helpless.
He is not weak. He is not forgetful. Jesus died on that cross as a picture of
God’s love… He died on that cross as a sacrifice to cover our sins…
and He died on that cross to defeat that lying serpent forever!
But He is NOT DEAD anymore!
He has risen from the dead and He is ALIVE forever and ever!
And that’s not all… tomorrow we will see just why people all over the
world STILL celebrate this day all these thousands of years later.
I can’t wait to tell you the GOOD NEWS and the rest of the story!!!
Day 14- Eternal
Today’s Scripture Suggestions:
–Psalm 90:2
–Revelation 21:5
–2 Peter 3:13
–2 Corinthians 5:17
–Ephesians 2:4-6
Wow! What a journey!
We have now gotten to walk, from the beginning, through God’s AMAZING plan to rescue His people and set things right! And yesterday, we saw it all finally come together when Jesus rose from the dead! WHOOOO! No wonder people celebrate Easter!
You might think that this is where the story of Easter ends.
No way! Yesterday I told you that there was one more piece of REALLY good news about God’s plan. It is OUR part in the story!
Jesus wasn’t just ALIVE to show us that GOD is alive… Jesus rose from the dead to show us a picture of LIFE for us!
God’s story tells us that any of US who accept the covering He died to give us on the cross, can have our own sin that separates us from God destroyed…
THIS is the perfect kind of covering. Way better than the fig leaves, and way better than the animal skins. It won’t wear out, or get too small, or wear too thin.
Jesus Himself is our covering!
AND though someday, like Jesus’ body, our bodies will die too, God will raise US back to LIFE just like Jesus!!
And we will no longer be dead, we will be fully ALIVE!
Forever.
One more time, let’s go back to the Garden. When God sat back and looked at all He had made. When He said it was very good. It was perfection. There was no sin. There was no death.
He had made the earth and man and everything He created to last forever.
Just like Him.
Because God is Eternal.
He has no beginning and no ending.
And now, through Jesus, WE can live forever with God, just like He wanted us to in the beginning. Someday, He will create another perfect place for all of His people to live with Him, and rule with Him for eternity.
But that’s another story for a different day.
So…What do we do with all these new ways to KNOW Jesus?
Are you excited by one? Was there a particular attribute that made your heart so full and happy?
Did you want to talk about it, or sing about it, or tell someone about it?
Did you thank God for it?
Guess what?!?
THAT is exactly what we do with knowing Jesus!
There is a Greek word for our English word “to know”… it is the word ginosko.
If you speak Spanish, this word might also sound familiar. The Spanish word is ‘conocer’.
It means to know someone or something by PERSONAL EXPERIENCE! I hope through this exploration of Easter, you have come to know Jesus a little bit more PERSONALLY!
And when you overflow a bit yourself with His love, or patience, or goodness, or forgiveness, or LIFE on this earth, HE JUST LOVES IT !!
Do you know what happens when we share with others what we have personally experienced about the very ALIVE Jesus?
We glorify God.
When we agree with God about who He is, it is so pleasing to Him!
Imagine what the day will be like for everyone who has believed in Jesus’ death, resurrection, and victory over sin and death (aka the story of Easter!!), when we see ALL of the attributes of God together at the SAME TIME!
LOVE. LIGHT. GOODNESS. HOLINESS. POWER. TRUTH. FORGIVENESS. PERFECTION…
blazing and shining fully on us! If it weren’t for our new bodies, we’d surely not be able to stand it !! Minutes before Jesus was arrested and taken to the cross, He prayed to the Father.
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do…”
If you didn’t KNOW (by personal experience) God before, but feel like you’ve met Him during our study, His gift of eternal life is for YOU! If you want that LIFE, but you’re not sure how to receive it, please talk to your parents, or a pastor if you go to church. You can also email me!
I would be so honored to talk to you more and try to answer any questions you have!
ch*****@*************es.com
And are you are wondering what we will do someday when we get to meet Him face to face? We will live out our part in the story of Easter…knowing Him, with ALL of His beautiful attributes FULLY forever!
See you there!
~Chenoah
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