Good Friday to Easter

Good Friday and Easter

This is from Bro. Russell Duck, our pastor at First Baptist Church.  Really even, he quotes Barbara Brown Taylor.

"Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief, because I still do not want to die. 

I believe Jesus has power to raise the dead, only I do not want him practicing on me.

I want a God who will cut my losses and cushion my failures, a God who will grant me a life free from pain. 

I want a God who will rescue me from death, who will delete it from the human experience and find another way to operate.

What I, what all of us, have instead is a God who resurrects us from the dead putting an end to it by working through it instead of around it;

creating life in the midst of grief, 

creating love in the midst of loss, 

creating faith in the midst of despair,

resurrecting us from our big and little deaths, 

showing us by His own example that the only road to Easter morning runs smack through Good Friday."  

It's pretty simple:

No suffering.........no glory.

No cross.......no crown.

No Good Friday.....no Easter.