My belief of the significance of Easter was missing a key element for a long time. I wasn’t hung up on if it all happened. I believed that Jesus died on the cross, conquered death and rose victorious the third day. I believed all the things you are taught in church…
I just didn’t believe Jesus did it for me.
In my mind it was true that Jesus was the Savior of the world, but I felt I personally was on the outside of God’s grace.
Somehow my sin was too great for the cross. Or surely He wouldn’t have come all that way and suffered so immensely for a rebellious nobody from Nebraska living 2,000 years after the fact. In my mind it was true that Jesus was the Savior of the world, but I felt I was on the outside of grace not knowing or accepting it as my personal gift from God.
Until I needed it more than anything.
In early motherhood I needed the grace of God to be real for me personally. I was broken by anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and stress. All I saw was black fog and I needed Jesus to be real and to be light not to the world, but to me.
The cross had to take away my junk because I couldn’t hold it any longer. Every day I need Jesus to remind me that I am loved, forgiven and free to just live without any conditions. Because Jesus came to set his Father’s kids free, not so they could keep trying to earn their own Salvation.
Jesus came to set his Father’s kids free, not so they could keep trying to earn their own Salvation.
Knowing that Jesus is for me personally changes everything about life. Really it has given me back back my life. It increases my joy, hope, and thankfulness while banishing fear and inadequacy.
So this Easter my prayer for us all is that we would continue to walk boldly in the freedom won on the cross. Claiming that we are…
FREE to accept love and grace personally from Christ.
FREE to forgive others with his strength and wisdom.
FREE from trying to work for the gift of Salvation.
FREE to believe in your core that God crossed the barrier of heaven and earth…
for you and me. So we could truly live.
“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” (1 John 4:9-10 NIV).
Andrea Chatelain 
This hits home…I realized not that many year ago, although I’ve been a believer for many years, that most of what I possessed was the head knowledge that Jesus died, rose again and lives today…but I desperately needed that knowledge to make the trip from my head to my heart. You are right on…that needs to happen daily, oftentimes several times a day. Jesus loves even me!
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