That Settles It!

I figured it was probably time to go on the current season’s healthy eating kick. How did I know it was time? I called them “little sugar cravings,” but when I caught myself shooting out of the car and landing almost instantly at the pantry door, I figured I’d probably already let the sugar-fest go on for too long. I was like a treat-seeking missile, with a chocolate target. When it gets that severe, not even the chocolate chips are safe.

It’s also a clue that it’s time to make some diet changes when I choose a Sunday School class by rating their doughnuts. “She’s a good teacher, but she only serves glazed. Maggie’s class always brings those chocolate-covered, custard-filled long johns.” It’s hard to compete with a good long john.

I guess the real clincher is when I catch myself digging through the toes of the kids’ Christmas stockings for any leftover chocolate snowmen. That’s especially a dead give-away if we’ve already moved into Spring.

Every now and then, I have to examine my sugar passion to make sure I’m not so out of balance that I outgrow all my clothes. I sort of examine my own evidence and testify against myself. If I’ve tackled a couple of my kids for the last Ho Ho, for instance, that about settles it.

I’m so glad Jesus settled the really big issues. We never have to wonder about His love for us. It’s eternally more intense than any choco-need I’ll ever experience. He proved His immense, unconditional, unshakable love when He died on the cross to make it possible for us to have a right and tight relationship with Him. But if you examine the evidence, you’ll find that He went all out to prove His power to save. The same power that saves us from sin raised Him from the dead. Now that settles it!

How glorious that we can serve a risen, LIVING Savior! Romans 8:11 says, “It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!” (The Message)

Because Jesus is alive, we’ve been made spiritually alive. That’s one reason I so love celebrating the resurrection. The Easter season reminds us that Christ settled it all in one earth-rocking event. I dearly love Resurrection Sunday—even when I don’t get to eat any of the chocolate bunnies.

Rhonda Rhea juggles her writing and speaking ministries around chasing her five children and running to keep up with her husband, Richie, pastor of First Baptist Church of Troy, Missouri. She is the author of Amusing Grace—Hilarity and Hope in the Everyday Calamity of Motherhood and Turkey Soup for the Soul—Tastes Just Like Chicken. Her newest book, Who Put the Cat in the Fridge?—Serving Up Hope and Hilarity Family Style, just hit the bookstore shelves. Find out more at www.RhondaRhea.net.