Easter

This weekend has been nothing short of glorious. It all started with Secret Church on Friday night. This is something that I have never been to before, but it was awesome. We gathered at Mt. Anderson around 7 to watch a podcast (kind of) by David Platt, it did not end until about 2am, but I could not make it that long. I am hoping to go back and finish out my study guide because what I did hear was some pretty powerful stuff. This study was called the cross and suffering. As a Christian I still always get discouraged when "bad things happen to good people." After Friday night I no longer have that mentality. I wanted to share with you all a few of the things that I learned during Secret Church.

1)The cross is the key to understanding all suffering. For Christ suffered on the cross for our sins, although most of us think that means there will be no suffering in our lives, that is wrong. Suffering will come, all Christians will undergo suffering, but God is still in control.

2) Everything in all history, including suffering was planned for Good Friday. I have never really thought about this until now. Everything points to Good Friday. Everything before the cross points forward to it, and everything since then points back to it. The cross means everything to us a Christians because for us Jesus paid our debt so that we may have life more abundantly.

3) I would encourage all of you to read Genesis 1-11, this chapters assure us that there is hope. These chapters have changed my life over the course of the past 2 days...it is some good stuff!

4) Things to remember...We have a King who is guiding us. God is constantly working in our lives. He orchestrates every detail using a variety of circumstances.

5) His perfections never change.

6) We need to embrace the curse and run to the cross.

7) God will show himself faithful to us. I know we hear this a lot, but I have taken the past few days to really mediate on this. For me, this is saying why worry because you know that God is faithful? God has a plan in his time, in his way, and regardless of what that is it will be good, because He is good and he is faithful always.

8) God uses suffering to teach us to rely on Him. When bad things happen we always have questions and these are the times where some of us rely on God the most and then others turn away from God during this trials. God wants us to trust him completely, and for some of us this may mean going through some tough times to teach us to fully rely on him.

God is teaching me some great stuff right now, I am learning, and growing. I feel like I am in a new place-a great place. And all I want to do is shout from the rooftops about how great God is..which leads me to the next point. Easter Sunday-what an amazing service we had a Mt. Anderson. Growing up in a Baptist church I have never really been the first to raise my hand or to clap. When I went off to college and started attending Cornerstone Summit this was a norm for them. It soon became a norm for me because the Holy Spirit began to speak to me, and I wanted to raise my hands, dance, etc. Anyway, long story short I felt the Holy Spirit begin a work in my life this morning like never before. Just thinking about what Jesus did for me, and how he arose from the grave on this glorious morning is enough to make anyone shout with joy. We were singing a song this morning, "The Power of the Cross." One other person was standing up and I stood up too and lifted my hands to the one who paid my debt. Now, normally this would never happen. I would just sit there and close my eyes and sing. This morning I gave up on caring what others thought, and just thought about my Savior (that's all that matters). It was the best feeling. During the next song almost the whole room was standing, and tears were flowing from my eyes. It was a POWERFUL time, and my heart was so full I was overwhelmed. I know that this is one Easter that I will never forget. "I will rise when he calls my name, no more sorrow, no more pain. I will rise on eagle's wings, before my God fall on my knees."

Happy Easter!!