NOW WHAT

Resurrection Day (or Easter for others) is now over. We preached our Resurrection Day sermon or taught a lesson explaining to the best of our ability what happened at Calvary. Some of us did our best preaching this weekend. Services planned, performed, and powerful for people to experience the Resurrection story. We wore our new clothes. We sung our songs. We gave our baskets. We had dinner with friends and family. We loved on our kids. Easter Egg hunting picnic was a blast. We had a wonderful Sunday afternoon. The sky was blue with the radiance of the sun shining throughout the day. It wasn't too hot or too cool it was just right weather to go to the beach. Overall, we can sum it in the words of Ice Cube...today was a good day.

 

Now that it's over, what's next? Do we go back to doing what we've always done? What do we do with what we've heard in churches all weekend long starting with Good Friday? What do we teach our children about Christ after He resurrected? How do we live after this weekend of Christian activities? Where do we go from here? 

 

You think I'm about to go deep with a Rhema (fresh) word from on high but I'm not. It's a simple response to how we should respond after this weekend of activities. Here it is....wait a minute....

 

Change your life's habits!

 

It should be difficult for you and I to go the rest of our days without making some sacrificial adjustments to live out our days in glorifying God. The resurrection of Christ calls both the unbeliever and believer to do and be better today than you were yesterday. Jesus died but when He got up He was not the same after His death. 

 

 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:10-14.

 

The goal to win the prize is to look more like Jesus every day. 

 

How do we grow?

 

1. Growth is intentional and not incidental. 

2. Set boundaries or as a dear friend said to me over a year ago..."Smith, guard your boarders!" Thanks bro!

3. Check your pride at the door

4. Don't take everything personal. It's not an attack on you its an attack what you're trying to become.

5. Pray before you say or do anything

6. Read and process the information before you respond to a text, email, FB post, rumor, or negative comment(s). Call to fix it and don't type back

7. Meditate on the Word of God

8. Don't use social media to air out your personal issues 

9. Show the love of Christ at all times. You don't have to like everything about a person to love them. No one person is perfect

10. Talk it out! I'm a very private person to a fault at times. But lately, I've been doing my best to talk things out with those closest to me. It works and helps when two people communicate in listening moreso than trying to get a point across. 

 

One final exhortation here before I go and this one is a good one.... TAKE IT ONE DAY A TIME! 

 

May God grow you and I after this resurrection weekend.