Easter People

1 John 5: 1-5, The Message Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we'll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God's children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome. Every God-begotten person conquers the world's ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world's ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God. During the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, many Christians celebrate the season of Eastertide. Fifty days of worship and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The hymn Easter People Raise Your Voices reminds us in the 3rd verse: Every day to us is Easter With its resurrection song To our God who rights the wrong. The power of God transcends all Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we no longer have the need to fear death – nor be hindered by the challenges and crises of the human condition. Jesus revealed, time after time, the power of God's love which transcends the lack of material resources like food and shelter…it transcends disease. The power of God's love is greater than social marginalization, discrimination and isolation. The power of God's love is even greater than death. In our world today, it is good to have reason to celebrate. Lack of civility, other forms of violence, overextending ourselves, fear and economic challenges can make it difficult to recognize the incredible power of God's love and the great gift of receiving that love. Every day the resurrection power of God is available to us. This means that human beings have the potential to transcend the multitude of virtual realities that cause us to become confused about who we are. Our humanness helps us to evolve spiritually We are children--offspring of God. We are spiritual beings, as they say, having a human experience. My granddaughter told me about a book that was part of the discussion in her Sunday school class. The book was about a little boy who had died and came back to life. His testimony is that heaven is real! Her question to me was: “So why are we here? Why didn’t God just make it so we could skip this human experience part and just stay with God?” I told her, “We don’t know for sure but I believe it has something to do with the evolution of the human soul.” There is something about the spiritual growth that comes from learning to live with and love other human beings that we would miss if we skipped this part. As Martin Luther King, Jr. and others have said, none of us is free until we are all free. As Easter people, we celebrate our freedom through Jesus Christ. That freedom allows us to meet life and death with assurance, joy and peace. We are indeed Easter people every day of our lives. Because he lives, we face tomorrow, Because he lives, all fear is gone! Life is worth living, celebrating and sharing with others! What do you celebrate about Jesus' resurrection today? --Bishop Linda Lee, WI Ann Conf God is Still In Control! Miss Lladale Carey Web Content Producer www.umcgiving.org lcarey@umcom.org