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What Easter Means to Me March 28, 2018

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion.
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4 comments

I look at my life before Christ and I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t seem like my life.  I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980.  I was thirty years old.  That has been thirty-eight years ago.  When I was first saved I mourned for all the years I had spent wasting my life trying to do it on my own.  I remember praying and asking God to give me as many years to serve Him as I had wasted denying Him.  Now, that is just one of the answered prayers in my life.

From the first day I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior I have done have never denied Him and standing on the faith He has given me I never will.  Have I always served Him?  Yes.  Have I always served Him well?  He will be the judge.  Have I ever fallen short of what He would have me be?  Yes, constantly, consistently, and often consciously.  Just as the greatest sinner and the greatest saint I will stand or fall based on His grace.

In my years before Him I lived my life into a dead-end of self-seeking, selfishness, and self-loathing.  Though I denied He even existed He reached out to me.  Though I took His name in vane he loved me.  Though I followed hedonism into every type of sin He washed me as clean as a new born baby, as clean as a new blanket of snow.

Jesus delivered me from alcoholism, from drug addiction, from hatred, from envy, and shame.  He gave me a new life complete with a new wife, a son, a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a new name.

What He has done for me He will do for you.  He loves you as much as He has ever loved anyone.  Your name is written on His hand and no one not sin, not hatred, not failure, and not the devil can snatch you out of His hand.

Trust in Him.  Reach out to Him and He will reach out to you.  He will never leave you nor forsake you.  Being God He did not grasp at that but instead emptied Himself and became a man.  Living a perfect life He was sacrificed for the children of Adam paying the price for every sin and opening the way through faith to become the children of God.  For if we will confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord an believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we will be saved.

And salvation is not just pie in the sky.  It is not just a far off reward for a life of toil and pain.  Salvation is a right now new life, a life where we will never be alone for He will send His Spirit to live within us.

Don’t let anything hold you back when Jesus wants to hold you up.

This is what Easter means to me life from death and life evermore.  An old song sums it up rather well:

Living he Loved Me
Dying he saved me
Buried He carried my
My sins far away
Rising he justified me
Freed me forever
One day he’s coming back Glorious day

Have a blessed Easter.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  © 2018 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com   Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

My Witness April 12, 2017

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion.
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2 comments

When I was young I was not a nice fellow.  Snakes would cross the street when I sauntered down the sidewalk.  My all consuming passion was getting enough alcohol and drugs to help me forget something I couldn’t remember.  Playing music and living in a 24/7 party atmosphere was all I cared about.  Other people were collateral damage on my way to a buzz.  I had the name of my guitar tattooed on my arm so women would know where my loyalties lay.

Spiritually I was dead inside.  I called myself an atheist and I was faithful to my boast.  Anyone who spoke to me of any religion was automatically consigned by me to irrelevance.  The closest thing I had to an actual conviction was a strident attachment to militant apathy.  I didn’t care about anything and I couldn’t stand anyone who did.

That was my life until I was thirty.  Then God spoke to me.  God touched me.  God changed me.  God gave me a new life.  I was born again.

Today I can remember what I did in my former life but I can no longer relate to it.  It as if my life before God was a movie I have seen.  I can recall the important scenes and the important characters but I feel a complete detachment to being one of the actors in the plot.

God gave me a wife who is the love of my life.  He gave me a son who is my heir and friend.  He gave me a daughter-in-love who is the daughter I always wanted to have.  He has given me two grandchildren who are the joy of my life as a seasoned citizen.  He has allowed me to see miracles, plant churches, be a pastor, found ministries that fed and clothed thousands, watch people accept Him, watch people grow in Him, and hold the hands of people who went to join Him.

I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980 so I just had my 37th birthday as a child of God.  I give Him the glory for my life.  I give Him the honor that is His due.  I cannot even give a fraction of the love He has shown.  He is my source, my summit, and my all.

As we approach the celebration of His rising from the dead I am reminded of the fact that it is faith that saves us and that not of our self for even the faith is a gift.  I look about at all the traditions and customs we have developed in more than two thousand years and I smile.  I pray that everyone who calls on His name has a blessed and joyous Resurrection Day.  Enjoy the season as best meets the requirements of your faith.

Let us all recall that if we confess Jesus as Lord and if we believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we shall be saved.

That is the truth, the truth upon which all of reality rests.  That is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, all the rest is window dressing.  Just as one enjoys Italian food and another enjoys Chinese yet all food is good to those who like it.  So too, our traditions and customs if they do not detract from the truth of by who and how we are saved are all good.

Have a wonderful time with family and friends, coreligionists and those C&E Christians who make it standing room only at so many normally empty churches at this time of year.  Love them all and let God sort them out.  Just remember, the biggest surprise when we get to heave in not who is there but that we are for it is not by works but by faith that we are saved.  The greatest saint and the worst sinner both need the Lord’s grace to enter in.

There is no sin so great that it cannot be forgiven if we lay it at the cross.  He knows us better than we can ever know ourselves and he forgives us.  Don’t labor under a load you were never meant to carry any further than the cross.  Give it all to Him and he will give you rest.

I praise Him for saving me.  I Praise Him for giving me life.  I ask Him to open doors for me to serve Him.  And when I am gone there is but one eulogy I wish anyone to hear, “God got the glory!”

Yours in Him,

Robert

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2017 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

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