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Jesus is alive!
Jesus is alive!
Then He (Jesus) said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Luke 22:15-20.
Jesus knew who He was, the Son of God, and why He had come as a man born of a woman, the Son of Man. He took on human flesh so that He could make the way to the Father open and so that He could show us that Way. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. John 14:6 & Philippians 2:5-11.
Luke records the words above. Jesus knew He was about to suffer and die in fulfilment of all the symbolism of the Passover Lamb. He knew He would be offered up to God His Father as the sinless sacrifice, represented by the Unleavened Bread, without sin. He knew He would be crucified with the wicked, the two criminals crucified alongside Him. He knew He would be buried in a rich man’s grave. All according the prophecies given in what we call the Old Testament, what Jesus called ‘the Law and the Prophets’. Yet He eagerly looked forward to the Passover. Why was that, do you think?
Surely it was because He also knew He would not stay in the grave, that He would be raised to life, resurrection life, after three days and three nights! What an amazing fact! Jesus is alive today!!
Some people say, ‘Oh, if only someone would come back from the dead and tell us all about it.’ Well, He is the One who has come back and told us what it’s all about! Some would say it’s just a fairy story, but Jesus was seen and witnessed to by hundreds of people after His resurrection. This is all faithfully documented and recorded for us in the Gospels and letters of the New Testament. (The film Risen conveys this very well.)
He is alive, and alive forevermore! That is a truly life-changing fact. Because He lives, we shall live also. Because He lives, we have a hope and solid expectation that we too will be resurrected, just as He was. Not after three days, of course, but we shall be raised to resurrection life, just as Jesus was, all in God’s time. Jesus rose again on the Feast of First-fruits, the first day of the week after the Passover. He is the first begotten from the dead:
But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 1Cor.15:20
The presence of first-fruits signifies there will be a harvest to follow. Jesus is the resurrection first-fruits, all those who believe in Him will be the resurrection harvest!
This life is for us to experience in the here and now. Is He risen in your heart? Have you experienced the new birth the Holy Spirit brings when we put our hope and trust in the LORD Jesus. He died for us in our place, the sinless for the sinful, so that we don’t have to die an eternal death. When we repent, turn to Him for forgiveness and cleansing and enthrone Him in our lives, we are raised to newness of life in our spirits here and now, born of His Spirit into His family. This is what Jesus’ death and resurrection is all about – new life in Him! God bless you!
Where we meet is changing!
For the last eight years Celebration Church has been meeting at St John Fisher church hall on Waltham Rd. This building has been a blessing to us and we have really appreciated the hospitality and assistance the local Catholic church have given to us during this time. However, when it was put up for sale at the end of 2016, and our offer to buy the building was not successful, we began to seek the LORD as to the way forward.
It’s quite fitting that our last Sunday in St John Fisher hall will be Resurrection Day. We can reflect on God’s goodness in all that has gone before and look excitedly to all He is going to do for us in the future. He has good plans for us, as individuals and as a collective fellowship together, and as we move we believe we enter a new and exciting phase of the church’s life!
We knew the LORD would lead us in all this, and He has done that! He has opened the way for us to move to the newly extended and refurbished Scartho Community Library on St Giles Ave. Our first Sunday there will be the 8th April, at the usual time of 10.30am!
The library is still in the final throes of the rebuilding and renovation process, so as you can see above in the photo taken on 29th March, it is still pretty much a building site on the outside.
Inside however, most of the work is complete, and so we will be able to move our all our various items and equipment next week prior to our first Sunday service there on the 8th April. Just to confirm, we will have front door access so we don’t need to negotiate whatever building works are still underway to the right of the entrance way. (For more information on the Library click here.)
So, as we approach the Passover, and remember Jesus’ death and resurrection in fulfilment of it, let’s contemplate the following verses:
Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea
And a path through the mighty waters, Who brings forth the chariot and horse,
The army and the power (They shall lie down together, they shall not rise;
They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick):
“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 43:16-19
The peace that dare not speak its name: untold story of Arab-Jewish reconciliation.
I saw this video this week, shared on Facebook by a congregational leader in Israel. It is of a former Muslim terrorist, the son of a Hamas leader & founder, speaking out at the UN on behalf of Israel, no less!
This amazingly courageous young man, Mosab Hassan Yousef, is now a believer in Jesus, and he recently spoke at the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of UN Watch, a non-governmental organisation. He speaks out from his own experience against the lies and atrocities perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority against the Palestinian population.
By doing so he will be clearly aware he is placing his own life in great danger of reprisal and murder, as he also is a Muslim who has converted to faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour. It’s a fascinating video.
The article in which the video is linked cites a lack of Western media integrity in reporting such atrocities (as described by Mosab Yousef in the video), actually contributes to the ongoing political impasse in Middle Eastern politics.
Please pray for this young man, for the Lord’s protection on him, and for his message to receive widespread distribution.
Feast of Tabernacles 2017
We’re having our third celebration of the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles on Sunday 8th October at 6pm, and everyone is welcome! The invitation leaflet is available here: FOT 2017 poster
Join with us in celebration as we take a look at how the Lord Jesus fulfills this Biblical feast.
There will be praise and worship with our new worship team led by Steve Hallberg, dancing led by our dance team Shoshanim, and teaching from Andy King. There will of course be Hebraic dancing open for all to participate in, and cakes and refreshments afterwards.
You can learn more about the Christian significance of the Feast of Tabernacles here, and about all three of the Biblical autumnal feasts (Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles) here.
Look Up
This week I read a cluster of news articles that could have been taken directly from the plot of my 2012 end-times novel, Seventy Weeks. These were not the main headlines most of us will have seen – the missile firing of North Korea nor the latest terrorist atrocity on the London Tube. No, these were a little more disguised but seriously relevant, nonetheless.
I mention them because, as Christians, we need to be aware of what is going in our world today. These things are road-signs as to where we are and where we are heading.
Following the launch this week of Apple’s iPhone 8 smartphone, which is able to identify the user using the latest facial recognition technology , the Daily Telegraph ran this piece about the benefits of ‘Big Data’. However, it included the following significant comment:
“We are now only a few years away from the day when facial recognition technology will be sufficiently advanced that, whenever we walk down a street, networks of CCTV cameras, public as well as private, will immediately recognise us. Databases of people’s faces will be created and used for commercial as well as law and order purposes.”
What in the world is going on? Catastrophic hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, terrorism, nuclear threats. Is God trying to tell us something? Yes.
An article by Joel Rosenberg, a prolific Christian writer and commentator.
Hurricane Harvey drops 33 trillion gallons of rainfall on the U.S. Experts say the floods are a once-in-a-thousand-years event. Now Hurricane Irma is bearing down on Florida. Historic, sustained winds of at least 185 miles-per-hour. Devastation in the Caribbean has been catastrophic. Experts say Florida and other American states could face the same.
Then there’s the horrific, out-of-control wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest Countless that are “creating apocalypse-like conditions in numerous Western states, blotting out the noonday sun behind thick blankets of smoke and depositing ash like freshly fallen snow,” according to the Washington Post.
At the same time, Mexico experiences the worst earthquake in a century. Record-breaking floods are devastating Asia. Half of Bangladesh is reportedly underwater. 100,000 homes have been destroyed. Forty million people face severe and potentially life-threatening food and water shortages. Russia is preparing to mass upwards of 100,000 troops on the borders of three NATO countries for a massive series of war games that some fear is a prelude to war in Europe. The genocidal slaughter continues in Syria. Terror attacks are occurring around the globe. North Korea threatens to nuke the United States, then tests a hydrogen bomb and long-range ballistic missiles. And tensions over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem spike, then settle, then spike again.
People have all kinds of theories as to what is happening, but the answer is quite straightforward — God is trying to get our attention.
Read the rest of the article here.
Scartho Celebration Church 