The Sent Sender!

I love getting packages! I love sending packages! Thankfully for me, internet shopping and ordering have made sending and receiving packages more popular than ever.

Did you know…

FedEx sends 6.9 million packages per day.

UPS Sends 15.8 million packages per day.

USPS Sends 1.8 million packages per day.

25 million packages are sent EVERY DAY, just from these three carriers!

What if God sent you a package?

What if that package contained everything that you would ever need for all of life, and all of eternity?

The fact is that he has sent you a gift and that package is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This package was delivered to you by a person or a group of people who received it from someone else, who received it from someone else, who received it from someone else…

…who received it from someone who was in the upper room on that first Easter evening. Looking back across the Kidron Valley, the disciples could see the place where Jesus was betrayed and arrested that past Thursday night. They were on the run, hiding from the Jewish leaders who were trying to wipe them out. They had heard rumors of the empty tomb from the women. John and Peter had been there and did not find Jesus in the tomb where he had been laid following his Crucifixion.

John’s gospel tells the story this way…

John 20:19-23

(19) On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” (20) After he said this, He showed them His hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

(21) Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (22) And with that He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (23) If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

The very first thing that the Lord Jesus does when he appears to his disciples is to prove that He had conquered sin and death and the grave! He establishes that he was sent! He was sent with the greatest gift that could ever be received.

The second thing that Jesus does is send his disciples out of that locked room to the ends of the earth!

The Gift is also the Giver. Jesus is the Sent Sender!

As we receive this gift from the one who was sent, we are also given the gift of being a sender ourselves. We are sent senders just as Jesus was sent by the Father in order to send us.

The Cross has Saved Us!

The Tomb is Empty!

The Lord has Ascended!

The Message is reverberating all over the world!

We are God’s sent people and we find our purpose and our joy in belonging to, and becoming like, the Sent Sender!

photo source: Bob M on Flickr