The Secret

 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”  John 2:19...."Earth's blackest and earth's brightest days are only 3 days apart." E. Stanley Jones

A precious soul in our church fellowship has been walking through some very hard times these past months. There have been tears, sadness, loss, and grief. The Lord had put them on my heart and I'd intended to message them to ask after their well being, but this past Sunday I saw them walking past on their way to go home. I asked how they were, and in their honesty, they shared their pain. We prayed. Not a prayer that rendered the heavens, just one that I think touched laid hold of His heart. Later that day I messaged them and they responded with some of what they've been walking through. In answering, the one thing I felt led to tell them was that in this pain, He was working His life, resurrection life, into them. They were experiencing their own "blackest day," but that His brightest day was assured to them. So it is to all of us who will follow where He leads, even when He leads us to His cross, which also becomes ours.

It's a hard truth that we come to know Him best and most deeply in the crucible of suffering. He's the Man of Sorrows, and in this fallen world, our sorrows will be, if we allow it, to be the doorway into the fullness of His resurrection life. A.W. Tozer said, "We want our Easter to come without the need for Good Friday." We want the wonder of resurrection life without the inclusion of the cross in realizing it. Someone said that we can't experience the resurrection without also experiencing the crucifixion. There is no shortcut into His life of abundance. We can't, as someone said, "Sneak around Golgotha." 

His Word speaks of entering into His "Secret Place." We only can by way of His cross. We can never lay hold of His heart and life in all the fullness He intends in any other way. This is the secret, and it's only a secret because our flesh hates this truth so deeply. Our flesh, that is, our self-life and will, will do anything to avoid the cross and its crucifixion. We run from it as we run from Him. As a result, we never really enter into that secret place of intimacy and knowledge of Him, and we suffer spiritual poverty because of it. J.B Chapman said, "When life is Christ, even death is gain." That's the secret. Do we know it? Do you?

Another Easter is upon us. Good Friday, Sunrise, and Easter Sunday services will abound. Sermons on the crucifixion and the resurrection will abound as well. How will they be received.....by you? Will both be religious terms that you know something about, or will they be what has been your spiritual experience? Maybe you're in the midst of your own "Good Friday," which seems anything but good to you. Let Him come to you there, minister to you there, and lead you to His cross there. The 3 days that the disciples weathered between His crucifixion and resurrection must have seemed an eternity to them. Suffering always does, but in an instant, the blackest day was turned to the brightest. In turn, He would lead each of them to their own cross and to their own resurrection. In the journey, they would learn the secret. He invites us as well. Do we come? Will we too learn the secret?

Blessings,
Pastor O