During this Holy Week, I believe it gives some insight as to how the apostles felt at the time Jesus was crucified. I imagine them walking with him into the Garden of Gethsemane for the last time on that Thursday night. I think about their anxiety and the outright fear they must have felt in not knowing precisely what was about to happen, yet realizing that danger was imminent. His words had more than hinted that he might be taken away from them, and their sorrow was palpable. (See Luke 22:45.) 

I think of how they must have felt as they watched their beloved Teacher and Friend being seized, beaten, abused, and finally left to die on a cross. Imagine standing under that cross with John, Mary, and a few others. Or imagine cowering behind closed doors, afraid to be seen with Jesus as he took his final breaths on Calvary.  He was gone. From his followers’ perspective at that moment, gone forever!

And then I think of how they must have felt that first Easter morning, when in their grief they heard that the tomb was empty. I imagine what it must have been like in those first hours, daring to hope, daring to realize that the Savior had indeed risen, that his friendship with them had not ended.

Then, finally, after an amazing, miraculous 40 days of seeing the Lord alive, eating with him and speaking with him, the apostles and many other disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven. The words of promise Jesus spoke to them that day were not just for them, but for all of us. 

On that glorious day, Jesus wanted us to know and remember that he would never leave us or fail us. His suffering and death prove his commitment to us. I find great peace, comfort, and joy as I remind myself everyday that I am never alone. I think of Jesus’ promise, and I look forward to the day when I will see him face to face in glory.

During this holy season, as you reflect on all that Jesus did for us, remember his promise—a promises of love sealed with his precious blood.

SINGLE — Jesus predicts his death.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:23–24 (emphasis added)

DOUBLE — Jesus is crucified with two others, one who would reject him and one who would accept him as Savior through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Matthew 27:38

TRIPLE — Three days after Jesus’ death, he would rise. He is our living Savior.

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. Mark 8:31

WALK — Jesus walked to his own death on the cross. His walk encourages us as we follow in his steps.

Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). John 19:17

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:2–3

STEAL — The leaders feared Jesus’ followers would steal his body from the grave. Rather, Jesus stole our hearts and stole us from Satan’s grip by rising from the dead for our salvation. As we look toward home plate—heaven—we know we have an abundant, forgiven, and eternal life through him.

[The chief priests and the Pharisees urged Pilate,] “So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” Matthew 27:64

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

HOME RUN — Jesus made our run toward our heavenly home possible by his grace, through faith, and he is the only way home!

[Jesus said,] “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:1–6

VICTORY CELEBRATION — Victory over sin and death is ours through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:54–57

SACRIFICE — He sacrificed his life for our salvation. His sacrifice was motivated by love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:9–11

The Bible points us to the sacrifice and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for our sins and salvation. Because of his sacrifice, we can live victoriously, knowing he went to bat for us, making sure we’d be safe at home!

- Tim Wesemann

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Used with permission grant #041008. © 2008 CTA, Inc. No duplication of this devotion is allowed without the express written consent of CTA, PO Box 1205, Fenton, MO 63026. www.CTAinc.com.

Every Lent, I also like to do an activity with the Jelly Bean Prayer because the children relate to it so well.  They love the use of the colors and relating these colors to the candies they see at Easter. I also like reading the Jelly Bean Prayer book to my class.

Here are two of my favorite craft ideas related to the Jelly Bean Prayer:

• Prayer beads.  These can be made inexpensively by purchasing stringing beads and nylon cording, both available at any craft store. Give each child one of the Jelly Bean Prayer bookmarks. Talk about each line of the poem; then have the children string one or two beads of each color onto the  cording.  Have the children cut a cross from craft foam and add that to the string of beads, too.

•  Baby food jar craft.  Give each child one of the Jelly Bean Prayer bookmarks  and a baby food jar. Cover the lid with fabric, gluing it down. Then tie a ribbon around the jar. Let the children put one jellybean of each color into their jar. (If you let them make two or three jars, they can keep one and give the others away as a witnessing tool. Be sure the children take a bookmark to give to each friend who will receive a baby food jar.)

Enjoy preparing for Easter with the children in your life!

Honoring members in this way is a good idea. But how could you step the value up from merely good to great, maximizing the assimilation value and encouraging true Christian fellowship?

 Here are four ideas:

1.  Get a group of friendly and established members to introduce people to one another. 
2. Provide name tags. Just because you know everyone doesn’t mean long-term members know newcomers or vice versa.  
3. Put sheets of ice breaker questions at each table. Include silly or serious questions. Ask people to name their favorite _______ (fill in the blank). Have everyone describe their best Easter/graduation/Mother’s Day of all time. Open ended questions like these can get everyone sharing in a way that feels safe and fun.  
4. Provide pencils and note cards and encourage everyone sitting at each table to exchange  prayer requests for the upcoming week. If they share phone numbers or E-mail addresses so they can stay in touch. Encourage them to contact each other at least once before next Sunday.

 Do you want to help worshipers break the every Sunday “hit and run” habit? Proactively leverage spring events to deepen relationships!

This year, I find my thoughts focused on what I do and do not have. Most people at some time or another feel a bit deprived. We all know people who just seem to have more than we do. They live in bigger homes, wear better quality clothes, drive newer cars, and take longer vacations to more inviting places. Meanwhile, we sacrifice, pray, and volunteer all kinds of time at church and perhaps community organizations, too, but seem to go without the things we want—sometimes without things we feel we really, really need.

These thoughts bring Jonah to mind. God gave him three days of time-out, so to speak, in the whale. There, during the quiet minutes and hours, he could meditate on what God wanted for him and from him. Or consider that Jesus himself spent 40 days in the desert, praying and reflecting and sacrificing even while Satan worked to dissuade him from God’s eternal plan that Jesus suffer and die to win our salvation.

As I reflect during Lent this year, my goal is to focus more on what God in his perfect love wants for me, letting that inform what I might think I need or want for myself.

God forced Jonah to contemplate. Jesus did it willingly. How about you? What might your Savior want to tell you? How might he want to change you? The weeks ahead are a perfect time to open your heart to his Word and find out.

Editor’s note: CTA’s new devotion book, “Power of the Cross,” would make the perfect guide and companion as you and others in your church meditate on the meaning of Jesus’ death during Lent this year. It’s not too late to order copies for your group or your whole congregation!

This picture of God, mistaken though it is, nonetheless captures the view of many people still today whom we might call “cultural Christians.” Folks like these have a passing acquaintance with Christianity and perhaps a tie to the church through a pious parent or godly grandparent, but no real grasp of the Holy Scriptures or of what our Lord Jesus truly taught.

Sadly, this picture of God has sometimes poisoned the original intent of potentially powerful customs in the church. Take Lent, for instance. We can tell what our culture thinks about it by watching the excesses of Mardi Gras. The drunkenness and other debauchery, lasting in some places for weeks, seems to say something like this: “Let’s get in all the sin we can before Lent arrives and God’s angry fist descends to destroy our fun.”

While some Christians observe Lent and others do not, we all do well to prepare our hearts for the glorious celebration of our Savior’s resurrection at Easter. Such preparation goes much deeper than a superficial decision to “give up chocolate” for six weeks. The early Christian church used the 40 days before Easter to rehearse the key teachings of Christ and all he has done to rescue us from sin and death. New believers were instructed in the faith; more mature believers made use of this time of preparation to review the basics of Christianity they had come to confess as truth. 

Think of it this way: Medical doctors often treat patients with a newly diagnosed chronic illness. High blood pressure, for instance. After a week or two on medication, the patient’s symptoms begin to fade away. Some patients interpret this as a miraculous cure —and stop taking the medicine. The symptoms come roaring back, sometimes with disastrous results. Call it denial. Call it a failure to communicate. Call it what you will, the doctor shakes her head and the patient bears the consequences.

The spiritual version of this scenario may occur even more often. Pastors and other Christian workers face it all the time. The Holy Spirit leads a person to recognize her sin and her need for the salvation Jesus has won for us. She relies fully on the blood of Christ shed for us on his cross. True peace cascades into this believer’s heart and life.

Yet after a week or two, a month or two, life seeps slowly back into a routine, a kind of “new normal.” Satan subtly slips the key truths of repentance and faith out from her field of awareness. She—or should I say we, for it happens to all of us—fail to notice because we’re focusing on other areas of our busy lives. Without realizing it, we’ve stumbled back under the Law, back under the bondage of trying and of trying harder to please God.

Instead of recognizing the truth that in Christ, God is already pleased with us, we labor under what St. Paul calls in Galatians 3 the “foolishness” of works (vv. 2–3), the “curse of the law” (vv. 10–14). At heart, this curse involves primarily the burden of shouldering the doleful “have-tos,” “shoulds,” and “musts” that Satan hangs over our heads like an eternal sword of Damocles.

•  In Christ and his cross, God is already pleased with us—with you! He takes as much pleasure in you right this moment as he will on that day he welcomes you into his eternal presence in the heavenly home. His love is an everlasting love that began in eternity past and will never change (Jeremiah 31:3; Malachi 3:6; Ephesians 1:3–4).
• In Christ and his cross, your sins are gone. They have disappeared into the sea of God’s forgetfulness (Micah 7:19). God has removed them as far from you as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

 Our culture, of course, fails to understand this kind of love and forgiveness. Even our own minds boggle at it sometimes. Consider, for example, Romans 4:5: 

To the [person] who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness (NIV, emphasis added).

 God justifies the wicked! Think of it! If we were good, we wouldn’t need a Savior! As we prepare for Easter, we do so remembering how much we truly need Jesus. We go back to the basic truths of sin and salvation. We recall that, though we once slaved for sin and Satan, we do so no longer. We instead revel in the deep, deep love of Jesus who died for us “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 NIV).

 And we exercise the freedom that’s ours in Christ for all it’s worth! Our heavenly Father wants our spiritual walk to be the exciting, joy-filled adventure of being who we are in Christ. We no longer have to do good works to earn our salvation. Instead, we get to! We can! We want to! (And for those times when our sinful nature tempts us not to want to, we have the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit working in us to renovate our desires.) Only the children of God can understand the joy of the psalmist:

I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free (Psalm 119:32 NIV).

Like children at 3:30 pm on the last day of school as summer vacation begins, we race down the steps and out the front door, free from assignments and term papers and the tardy bell. We get to do what we want. And what we want to do is to run in the path of Christlikeness, because at the cross, our Lord Jesus has set our hearts free.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

You are welcome to copy this devotion for one-time use in your organization as long as you will receive no monetary benefit from it. Please include this copyright line and submit an actual copy of use to CTA, attention Editorial Manager.

Used with permission grant #041008. © 2008 CTA, Inc. No duplication of this devotion is allowed without the express written consent of CTA, PO Box 1205, Fenton, MO 63026. www.CTAinc.com.

Short. To the point. Powerful in its simplicity. First John 4:19 is all that and more. I call attention to this verse as I work with my kindergarten students and as I talk with my own children each year whenever we focus on Valentine’s Day. 

Looking around at the flowers, hearts, cupids and candy that overflow from store shelves this time of year, I know I can feel overcome by the commercialism of it all. That’s when it helps me to focus attention God’s love for us. And that’s the message I work to communicate to all the children in my care every day.

This year, Ash Wednesday comes just three days after Valentine’s Day. As Christians observe both, our Savior reminds us of his love for us, despite our sins. In the weeks of Lent ahead, as we prepare our hearts for Easter, we will think often about the mercy and compassion of our Lord Jesus who died on the cross because He loved us so much.

God himself is the source of all love. He is the essence and definition of the word love. In response to all he has done and all he will do for us, both now and throughout eternity, we actively look for ways to demonstrate his love by serving others.

Check out the CTA website for some great ideas about keeping children (and adults, too) connected to their Savior throughout the Lenten/Easter season. You will find many products and projects there that will make the all-important truth of God’s love a fun and easy one for your children to learn. Now that’s something to celebrate!

It’s also why more and more churches have begun to look for ways to “theme” major celebrations—like the weeks leading up to Easter (Lent, in liturgical churches). And it’s why CTA wants to work with you as you think about doing it, too. 

Whether yours is a house-church, a mega-church, or something in-between, this year’s theme, The Power of the Cross, will resonate with worshipers. Materials—many free—include:

• Day-by-day devotional materials based on the Power of the Cross theme.
• Free sermons tied to the Power of the Cross devotions
•  Discussion guides tied to the Power of the Cross devotions and sermons, written for small groups or Bible study. (You will find the appropriate study on the pages following the free sermon for each week.) 
• Materials for kids and youth, helping them to focus on thePower of the Cross theme, too!
• Free invitations and follow-up materials, all based on the Power of the Cross theme and art.

Ash Wednesday is February 17, 2010, so it’s not too late to order! But don’t put it off. Just think of what God might want to do in the lives of everyone in your church this spring!

I’ve always found the lesson teachable because children love colors and relate so well to them. As the children and I read the prayer together, we discuss the meaning of the words.

The bag of free jellybeans that come with several of CTA’s Jellybean prayer items helps to complement this activity. I send these home with the children as my Easter gift to them.

It seemed to me at the time the story fit perfectly with some of the products CTA sells for Lent, particularly The Nail. Now, several years later, I still think so!

If you’re looking for a free devotion to use in connection with your Lenten services or Easter preparation activities, especially one that comes with a great “take-away” reminder for everyone who attends, check it out here!