WHAT IS SO GOOD ABOUT THIS FRIDAY????????? PASTORS FOR ISRAEL

Subject: What's so "good" about this Friday?
Greetings!

Today is "Good Friday" the traditional anniversary of the day that Jesus was crucified here in Jerusalem.

There are several different places where the crucifixion is supposed to have taken place, and there is argument over whether this day is the day it happened on or perhaps some other day.

The rival Catholic orders and Eastern Orthodox churches here in Jerusalem all have their separate shrines all over the Mount of Olives and they have rival processions up and down and around the Mount on different days this week and some of them preach sermons against each other and it's all very messy and ugly and proves nothing to anybody except the fact that they TOTALLY missed the point of what this day is really supposed to be all about. It is also a terrible witness to the Jews and Moslems who live in this city who must look at it and say to themselves "If that's Christianity then who needs it"?

So with that in mind, I'd like to take a moment to look at what Jesus actually accomplished on the Cross.

There are mountains of books written on this subject, but I'm writing a note, not a book, so I'll make it short.

In the Garden of Eden, God created the Human Race and placed them on a path which would lead them to a glorious and joyful future with Him. He gave them the instructions they would need to follow to stay on that path, but because He wanted them to make their own decision to follow Him, He also gave them an alternative. If they wanted to do things their own way instead of His way, they had that choice. It had to be this way or the fact that they followed Him would have been meaningless.

They chose to go their own way, and they sinned by disobeying Him and eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and in the process they brought a curse on themselves and all their descendants.

On the cross, Jesus corrected the mistake that Adam and Eve made in the garden of Eden. He made a way for the Human Race to get back on that path to God's glorious and joyful future that Adam and Eve had gotten off of when they sinned.

But once again, the method God employed involved a choice.

No one is forced to accept Jesus's sacrifice as an atonement for their sin, or to make Him the Lord and Savior of their Life. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, every human being has a choice to make, to do things God's Way, or their own way.

Today is "Good Friday" a day which is called "good" because it commemorates the central event in History, the day God Himself came down from Heaven in human form and offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, making a way to remove the barrier between God and man and giving every man, woman and child an opportunity to get back on the path which will lead to an Eternal Life of joy and gladness in the presence of God in Heaven instead of eternal sorrow and suffering in the presence of Lucifer in Hell.

Monday is "Resurrection Monday" the day we commemorate Jesus's defeat of Death as He was resurrected and rose on the third day. This event is no less important then the Crucifixion and also deserves to be meditated on and given thanks to God for.

None of us deserve to be forgiven of our sins, either the original sin we were born into as descendants of Adam and Eve nor the sins we ourselves commit. We deserve nothing but suffering in this life and Eternal Damnation in the next, and anyone who tells you that you deserve anything else, ESPECIALLY anyone who tells you that you deserve "prosperity" is selling you a load of rubbish!

But these days remind us that God in His Infinite Love and Wisdom has offered us a way to Eternal Life with Him even though we don't deserve it, and we should fall on our faces in joy and thanksgiving for this gift, and also that He gave us the wisdom and grace to accept it, when so many people all around us make the choice not to. Needless to say, we should also be praying for our fellow human beings that they WILL accept this gift before they die and it becomes to late for them.

Incidentally enough, a Jewish professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in the US has written a book about Christian support for Israel which I think deserves a look. There was a write up about it in the Jerusalem Post yesterday which you can see at this link;

www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=172156">http://www.facebook.com/l/ac0a5;www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=172156

God bless you all.