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"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Corinthians 15:14).
"And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17).
Jesus rose on the first day of the week, and that's why we as Christians come together on the first day of the week.
There are many religions in the world. They serve someone who is dead - who has not risen from the dead. Our Lord is alive - He has risen from the dead!
The Bible says our preaching and faith is in vain if Christ is not risen. So if your faith is built on anything else than Christ risen from the dead then it's built on emptiness.
The tradition of Easter eggs at Easter dates back even before Christ's death and resurrection. It signifies new life, so it is understandable that the early Christians used the symbol of the egg to denote Christ's resurrection and new life.
The resurrection of Jesus is a well documented historical fact.
"As many were astonished at Thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men:" (Isaiah 52:14).
He was beaten so much that His face was not even recognisable anymore.
A certain mother's face was terribly disformed and her son was mocked at school because of his "ugly" mother. One day he asked her about it and she told him how it happened. When he was still a baby, their house burned down and she rushed inside to save him. She found him with the flames around him, but not aflame yet. So she went through the fire, grabbed him and ran outside. In the process she was terribly burned. After that he loved his mother and was no longer ashamed of her or her scars, for they were the proof of her love for him.
This is just a feeble example of what the Lord Jesus went through so that we can have Eternal Life.
At the ninth hour He cried "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani", which means, "My God my God why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
God forsook Him because of your and my sin.
When He arose from the dead and appeared to His disciples He called them His brothers. They had forsaken Him, denied Him, yet He freely forgave them and called them His brothers.
Jesus calls us His brethren.
"For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren," (Hebrews 2:11).
The founder of the salvation army, William Booth, said, "if I could just take my co-workers and theological students and place them an hour above the flames of hell, and let that be their theological training, they will know exactly what to preach and it will be the end of lukewarmness".
The rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus from the dead to warn his brothers that they would not go to hell. Yet Abraham told him that they have Moses and the prophets an if they don't listen to them they would also not believe even if someone should rise from the dead.
We see how true that is, for Jesus, the Son of God, did rise from the dead, yet there are still multitudes who couldn't care less and carries on with their lives of sin.
"But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." (Hebrews 10:39).
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