March 31, 2007
Newsletter Archives

I suppose if I were to ask most people which came first, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus or springtime, they would say spring began thousands of years before the Lord Jesus came into the world. True enough, but the fact is that God planned the resurrection of Christ before the foundation of the world.
In the Bible, Peter states this, saying, “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold… but with the precious blood of Christ…who was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” 1 Peter 3; 18-20.
Peter underscores the fact that the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus came first; the foundation of the world and the seasons came second. God intended to give us the most vivid reminder of the resurrection of His Son by purposing that everything would bloom at the time the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
Spring is the time of new beginnings. It elevates everything from the harshness of winter to the gentleness and vivid variety of color and freshness. It is a new birth! Similarly the resurrection of the Lord Jesus brings a new birth and a new life to each person who trusts Him. No matter how much we have lived in a barren winter of wasted years, we can have a new birth and a fresh start.
How lost we have been is no problem to God. The Lord Jesus said of Himself, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” Luke 19:10. A complete change is possible through a right relationship with Him.
In the words of another, “When we tell ourselves “I can never change,” or “That will never happen,” we presume too much and believe too little. In Jesus Christ, God renders all of our final conclusions premature and all of our talk of determinism as simply bad faith. In Christ, God opens closed doors, brings resurrection, reveals possibilities, reclaims the lost, liberates the cursed and possessed, and changes the unchangeable.

Russ Nesbit