On Easter, Jesus did a wonderful thing for us. But just how does this translate into everyday experience? A story told by Gigi Tchividjian in More Stories from the Heart explains what can be yours because Jesus died and rose again on Easter.

In the story, there was a priest who suffered terribly over a sin he had committed as a young man, because he thought God could not forgive him. One day he heard of an elderly lady who had visions and even talked with the Lord during these visions, and finally he gathered enough courage to visit her. Over a cup of tea, he asked if she could ask the Lord a question for him.

The woman looked at the priest a little curiously. She had never been asked this before. “Yes, I would be happy to,” she answered. “What do you want me to ask Him?”

“Well,” the priest began, “would you please ask Him what sin it was that your priest committed as a young man?”

The woman, quite curious now, readily agreed.

A few weeks passed, and the priest again went to visit this woman. After another cup of tea he cautiously, timidly asked, “Have you had any visions lately?”

The woman said that she had, and that she had asked the Lord what sin the priest had committed as a young man. The priest, nervous and afraid, hesitated a moment and then asked, “Well, what did the Lord say?”

The woman looked up into the face of her priest and replied gently, “The Lord told me He could not remember.”

The Bible tells us that because Jesus took the punishment for our sins, God does not remember them against us any more. “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” the Lord tells us in Jeremiah 31:34. Jesus did a good job, didn’t He?

* * *
A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works; indeed, he certainly won’t know how it works until he’s accepted it.

- C.S. Lewis

* * *
Jesus Christ burst from the grave and exploded into my heart.

- Donna Hosford

* * *
HE’S LEFT THE CROSS!

By David Brandt Berg

Let’s not always picture Christ on the cross-the suffering and the death and the fear that it generates. We don’t have a Jesus on the cross-He’s left the cross! We don’t have a Christ in the grave; we have a live Jesus in our hearts!

He rose in victory, joy, liberty and freedom, never to die again, so that He could redeem us and prevent our having to go through the horrible experience of having to die without God.

What a day of rejoicing that must have been when He rose and realized it was all over! He had won the victory-the world was saved. He had accomplished His mission. He had gone through the horrors and agony of death and Hell for us, all of it, and it was over.

* * *
“He lives! He lives!
Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me
And talks with me
Along life’s narrow way.

“He lives! He lives!
Salvation to impart.
You ask me how I know He lives,
He lives within my heart!”

- Alfred H. Ackley

What Jesus Did, Copyright © 1998-2012, The Family International