Happy Palm Sunday Everyone!
After watching three separate church services, taking Communion and worshiping with my best friend and her family this morning, I am now ready to begin a productive week of growth and maturing in my faith and relationship with God. In Just a short few months our reality here in America has taken a drastic change from what we would consider the “norm.” A lot of us either find ourselves without a job and source of income or find their job busier than ever before. All events over 10 people are now banned, all big sporting and musical events have been canceled, things like weddings, birthday parties, funerals, ect are no longer happening. We are encouraged not to leave our homes; fear floods our daily lives through the media and the news, we see headlines such has; “Americas death count has now surpassed China,” “17-year-old dies from COVID-19,” “Nurse shows how germs can spread” and “NFL kicker dies from coronavirus.” As we scroll through Facebook, Instagram, twitter even snapchat we are discouraged by hundreds of posts spreading fear about the reality of todays world. This fear is taking over our community, bringing us down and filling our homes and families with anxiety and stress. I would like to change that today, today I don’t want us to be focusing on the negative sides of our daily life, lets swipe pass those negative headlines and focus on the positive ones. Positive head lines like; “New York deaths are dropping,” “billionaire donates ventilators to New York,” “72-year-old recovers from coronavirus,” “65-year-old recovers from coronavirus,” “16,700 people have recovered from the coronavirus in the United States” and “local restaurants coming together to bring food to the child in their communities.”
Today during one of the church services we streamed in our home, pastor Jon of Vima church pointed out four things Jesus Christ came in victor over that is shown in Matthew 21:1-11 and Luke 19:39-40.
#1 Donkey = Victory in chaos
Jesus rode in on a young donkey, which I’m sure as most of you can image riding on an untamed donkey for the first time would be very chaotic, but when Jesus touched the donkey and sat on it, the donkey was calm. This shows that Jesus had victory over chaos. The outbreak of the coronavirus has brought chaos into our nation, so this is very important for us to focus on, because God is using this chaos for his good and in the end, he is going to reign OVER the chaos.
#2 Palm Branches = Victory over enemies
Back in these days they used palm branches to welcome soldiers’ home from victories against their enemies, therefore; by Jesus being welcomed into the city by palm branches, it represents how Jesus has victory over enemies.
#3 Hosanna = Victory over sin
The word “hosanna” means “to save us”, therefore; in Matthew 21:9 when the crowd says “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest,” they are praising and glorifying Jesus for coming to save them. I’m sure they thought that Jesus was coming to save them economically, governmentally and financially, which is why just a week later those same people were ready to crucify Jesus for not bringing the salvation they expected. What Jesus planned to save them from was so much more than just those earthly things, Jesus came to save not only them, but everyone from eternal damnation, he came to save them spiritually. Even in todays world we see every day where Jesus doesn’t save us the way WE want, which causes us to pull away from him.
#4 Rocks = Victory over all
Luke 19:39-40 “And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” And he answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”” This shows that He is over everything, He’s not only the King of the church, but the King of the cosmos.
I want to encourage you all to take this with you this next week leading up to Easter Sunday and use this free time we have been given to really dig deep into the word of Jesus Christ and hopefully grow closer to him along the way.
I want to leave you with one last thing to spread the positivity today, I am only $57 away from 4k! which is amazing to me, I am so grateful to all my supporters for getting me this far. Right now, because of the lack of job security donations have been down, but my goal is to get another 1k this next month. I have my adopt a box, which is a bunch of small donations, so if you’re interested in making a small donation towards the adopt a box to help me meet my goal that’d be awesome.
Again, thank you all so much for your support.
Sincerely,
Beloved daughter of God
