Easter Eve, Last Day of Lent

This is what it says in Acts 2:45 (NLV):

As anyone had need, they sold what they owned and shared with everyone.

We truly live with so much excess... sometimes we don't even realize it as we start to categorize certain wants into needs. I know I am guilty of doing that many times... truly thankful for grace... for God's relentless love that never lets go! He continues to grow me and teach me each day... changing me, molding me into one whose life reflects Him!

I need a new purse. I deserve to eat out after a busy and tiring day. I need a vacation. I need a new car, new furniture, new appliances, a new home! And the list goes on and on... sound familiar?

Last night was the simulcast for Secret Church with David Platt. I was blessed to follow along with Ann Voskamp as she live tweeted the event! This particular tweet gripped me:

"You do not present a suffering Christ to the world through a luxurious life" @plattdavid #sc12 #1000gifts

Beautiful! Simple, yet profound. Convicting.

We had a great Good Friday service at church. Our teaching pastor delivered a message that was relevant to our whole family. From the youngest to the oldest, each person learned something! What a gift, what a blessing!

He said that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross should make us want to say {and I paraphrase}, "I want to take your sacrifice into my life. I want to partner with what you are doing to bring good to those around me." We are to be ambassadors of this Good News, letting the Gospel be known to others!

As our whole family partook of the Eucharist, my thoughts went to these words penned by Ann Voskamp in her book One Thousand Gifts:

I receive grace. And through me, grace could flow on.

I am blessed. I can bless. A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.

Eucharisteo is giving thanks for grace. But in the breaking and giving of bread, in the washing of feet, Jesus makes it clear that eucharisteo is, yes, more: it is giving grace away. Eucharisteo is the hand that opens to receive grace, then, with thanks, breaks the bread; that moves out into the larger circle of life and washes the feet of the world with that grace. Without the breaking and giving, without the washing of feet, eucharisteo isn't complete.

God calls me to do thanks. To give the thanks away. That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living. That our lives become the very blessings we have received.

Friends, are you holding on to excess?

Let's distribute wealth today. Let's allocate well what we have been blessed with. Let's learn to live with just enough. Let's live simply and give generously!

Happy Easter, friends!
Sunday's a-coming! "Love so amazing, so divine... demands my soul, my life, my all."

Unwrapping more of His love in this world.

Act justly.  Love mercy.  Walk humbly with God!