Easter Favorites 2013

Here are some of the favorite things that made me smile, laugh, worship, sing, during this Easter season. I hope you enjoy this recap of Easter Favorites 2013. By the way, you know we never stop celebrating Easter! We can’t pack up this day like a used Easter basket filled with torn candy wrappers and plastic colored grass. Easter should cause us to come to grips with the power of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ in a way that is not abstract, but rather touches us in our deepest selves…

Until we experience this love not only intellectually and cognitively, but also in a way that invades and permeates our minds, our affections, and our actions, we are going to lack the joy and power to live the Christian life God intends for us.

– Paul Kooistra

Favorite Quote:

“We don’t really NEED anything. I mean, people “need” water and food and stuff to live, but if we die it’s ok because we just go to see God. He says we never REALLY die.” –Colsen Frank, age 6 years

Favorite Video (Listen to Matt Papa tell The Story of God)

Favorite Blog Post: Thoughts About Easter

The day had been planned. She wakes up early before the sun has brightened the sky. Her heart is broken. She is weary from grief and each time she closes her eyes, she has the mental images of Jesus being tortured and brutally crucified. There is no rest from her sorrow. Mary is approaching the tomb in the dark hours of the early morning. She sees that the large rock, sealing the tomb where Jesus is buried has been moved! The tomb is opened!

I think she reacted like I would have…with panic! Confusion! Doubt! Unbelief!…continue reading

Favorite Cartoon

Favorite Holy Week Devotional: Love to the Uttermost

[PDF or Free eBook] There’s nothing intrinsically holy about particular days, but for most of church history Christians have set aside eight days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday for solemn focus (Romans 14:5–6). This string of days provides an annual interval for us to focus intently on the greatest events in human history, the acts of our Savior Jesus Christ. “Fix your gaze steadily on him,” John Piper writes of Holy Week, “as he loves you to the uttermost.”

Favorite Easter Opener

Easter Opener 2012 from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Another Favorite Cartoon (I’ll be singing this rendition to my grandchildren!)

Favorite Passion Week Infographic: Josh Byers (Click on image to enlarge)

Favorite Song: Beautiful Rescuer by David Walker

(A good friend emailed this link to me, because she knows I refer to Jesus as “my Rescuer.”)