AGAPE EASTER

Happy Easter! It's Easter Monday today, and it's turned out to be a rainy, drizzly day in the usually warm sunny Brisbane. A great day for us to take time out with the kids, lounge around home and catch up on dvd's, reading, games and whatever else families do to relax and chill out.

Easter is traditionally a time where people go away camping, holidaying or visit a church to feel a sense of closeness to Christ during this season celebration; and I am sure this Easter was no exception to this for many people.
At Breakthrough Embassy Brisbane, this Easter we decided to have a somewhat different kind of approach to our Easter Service. Everyone made the effort to recreate the last supper scene throughout the whole service, with people dressed in the style of dress from that period, food from that period, props made to try and turn the hall into a rugged upper room, with a lowkey kind of simplicity to everything including the Praise & Worship, preaching and running of the service.
But the significance of the day was not in the outward display of any recreation or re-enactment of the last supper or the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The heart of the service lay in the AGAPE of Christ, that drove Him to be killed and crucified for our sins, so that through Him we too could partake of the more than abundant life that He died and rose again to give us.

Every year it is common for people to celebrate this agape love of Christ, but this year what came strongly to me was the condition of our own hearts and whether or not we too possess the same agape love of Christ. This Easter, not only did we want to celebrate the unconditional love of Christ for us, but we wanted to take stock of our own unconditional love and begin to do a spiritual critical analysis of our own hearts this Easter, asking the hard questions to ourselves of whether we love people unconditionally just as Christ did. We can come to church week in and week out, sing praise and worship songs, do Holy Communion, hear a great sermon, give our tithes and offerings.... but still hold offenses in our hearts towards our parents, families, ex-partners/spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends, business associates, children and the list could go on! While offenses are common and a normal part of life, it is what we do with these offenses that distinguishes us from the world, and sets us apart so that we begin to truly display ourselves as peculiar people called out; a people who are in this world but are not of this world.

It is so easy to love Christ and celebrate what He did for us, because He loved us unconditionally. But I believe that He is looking for a people who will demonstrate and display the exact replica of what He did, for our generation and people around us today. Truly we can change our world if we take a completely different approach to life as we know it, and genuinely follow and live out the example of Christ - His selflessness; His unconditional love that held no grudges/offenses against those who hurt, persecuted and crucified Him; His sacrifice for us, even though we were so undeserving of such love, grace and mercy.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34 - 35

Does the world around me know that I am a disciple of Christ by my life; my love that is the same as Christ's? Or do they only know that I am a Christian because I go to church every week and talk a lot about what ministry/programme we are running at church?
Everyone desires to receive unconditional love, but how many of us are willing to actually GIVE IT? Jesus was so clear, that we are to love each other as He loved us. It's time for us to give abundantly in our unconditional love for each other - for our enemies, our offenders, our persecutors....EVERYBODY!

Let this Easter be a significant change for us to not only celebrate Jesus' love for us, but also our love for others, just as Christ loved us too, and gave His life as a ransom for us.