It’s Easter week—the ultimate holiday for Christians to celebrate. Without the cross, we have no hope. With the cross of Jesus, we have all hope! This is a stunning, glorious truth that should be at the forefront of all our minds as we contemplate the significance of Easter.
My simple exhortation to myself, which perhaps is helpful for you as well, is to set aside all the challenges, perplexities, hurts, and discouragements of everyday life to meditate on the greatness, the glory, the magnificent grace, and the amazing love of God for us—demonstrated through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul described this beautifully at the end of Romans 8:
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.—Romans 8:32–39 ESV
No one can improve upon Paul’s words here. God gave us his only Son, Jesus Christ, to be a propitiation for our sins, for which we deserve eternal punishment. This is remarkable. And if God did this for us, through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, how can we help but be overjoyed by such amazing love?
Dear friends, “we are more than conquerors” through Jesus Christ and nothing at all in this world “can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Savor, delight in, and fully trust in these magnificent truths this weekend!
He is risen!
Servant of our Most High King Jesus,
Tim Tomlinson
President
Prayer Requests:
- Please continue to pray for our students, faculty, and staff as we are now starting the last half of the spring semester. Pray that we would be able to finish the semester strong—especially our seniors who are preparing for life and ministry beyond Bethlehem College & Seminary.
- Please pray for our preparations for Commencement—especially that it would be a very special, in-person celebration of all that the Lord has done in and through our students.
- Please also pray for our admissions team as they work to bring in another outstanding class of students for the coming year. Pray both for Darcy Enthoven, our Associate Director of Admissions, and our new Dean of Admissions, Jonathon Woodyard, who will begin his duties on May 1.
- And, as always, please keep praying for our school’s finances. We praise the Lord for you and ask that he raise up more generous supporters in the months and years to come.