Believing, Remembering, Responding

On the way to Bible Study on Tuesday morning, I heard the song, “Oh Glorious Day” sung by Casting Crowns.  The song has the same words as the hymn, “One Day,” but with a different melody.  Written by J. Wilbur Chapman, the words to the chorus express the truth and hope of the gospel in just a few phrases.

Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He’s coming

Oh glorious day

This Holy Week we celebrated and remembered as the branches were waved on Palm Sunday.  On Maundy Thursday we gathered for the Lord’s Supper and remembered Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, how he served his disciples by washing their feet, his mandate to love and serve one another, and the betrayal.  The solemnness of Good Friday was a reminder of the sacrifice Jesus willingly made to suffer death on the cross so that we could be offered salvation, forgiveness of sins, and a relationship with God both now and for eternity.  What a difference 3 days makes as we now prepare for and anticipate celebrating our risen Lord on Sunday.  Oh what great love the Father has lavished on us.  God’s gift of salvation is free, but like a present it must be accepted and claimed before it belongs to the recipient.   How we respond to the gift and Giver should make a difference in our worship, words, actions, reactions, deeds, and thoughts because one day Jesus is coming again!  Oh glorious day!

He has risen!  He has risen, indeed!

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

     he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

     and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 
John 14:6 

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

Romans 10:9-10

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:8-10

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

I John 3:1a

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

1 Peter 1:3-5