What real difference does Jesus' death and resurrection make in your daily life?

Hi, Captain Beaver.

It made all the difference. He died for me. He died for that promise.

I have the knowledge that no matter what comes my way or what may happen to me that thanks to Jesus Christ I have an eternal home of peace and happiness. Nobody anywhere can take that away from me. I take comfort knowing Jesus is alive and well and looking out for me.

It reminds me daily, hourly that my daily walk should reflect my appreciation for His sacrifice. That would mean loving everyone, returning anger with understanding, sharing what I have with those who are in need and remembering that when I die I leave everything I have now behind but my soul is safe in Heaven.

Nothing can keep a good man down.

That I must again be assailed by folks demanding that all Americans live by their highly edited notions promulgated by their franchise of Christianity.

I am particularly reminded this week that, if the Big Black Book is true, then God had a plan, everything went to crap just like he planned, millions were sent to hell like he planned, then he sent himself in the form of a human to impregnate a 14-year-old girl so he could be born in the form of a human and die to fix the problem that he caused by his own design.

Then, the big story in the book - this resurrection - is covered in detail in four different versions by four people that allegedly knew what was going on, and all four versions are totally different.

Then this inerrant book of rules was written to lead all of the Faithful (TM) to Salvation (TM), but was written so poorly that within just a few years there were schisms and sects. A mere 1200 years later a HUGE reformation that has led to well over 20,000 different interpretations of these rules - with the vast majority of them claiming that the other 19,999+ denominations are wrong and are going to hell.

Yeah, this week I sit back and laugh - and continue to do good things for my fellow human beings without promises of streets of gold or threats of hell-fire - just like millions of other folks that don't need fairy tales to keep them from doing good things.

Absolutely none.

When I was an athiest, I saw all the religions of the world as a hodgepodge of claims and rules that were impossible to sort out - and therefore ought to be rejected (which I did). When I became a Christian, it had nothing to do with religion - but had everything to do with relationship. The Person I bent my knee to was Yeshua the Messiah (of the Bible). The Bible revealed the Word of God to me in print and in flesh. I came to the realization that when Adam (with Eve) lost "the relationship" (Genesis Chapter 3), he tried to repair it by wearing the "fig leaves" to cover his shame. Wearing the "fig leaf" was the birth of all "religion" - created rules, "eye candy", regulations and rituals in its simplest, basic form. A pathetic attempt by man to reach God...... It worked well enough to fool Adam and Eve (and for World Religion throughout history) but it didn't work with God. He told them the "solution" would come from the "seed of the woman", and symbolized by the shed blood and skins of a sacrificial "type" (a prophetic description of the Work of Christ) in the animal skins which would cover their "shame", and restore relationship - which happened when Adam an Eve "put on" those skins - skins which GOD provided. I came to the realization that there was nothing that I could ever do for myself, but simply "put on" the Provision (first laid out in Genesis 3, completed in Messiah Jesus) provided for me through His personal sacrifice, and now I can have a personal relationsip with God - through Christ's work on my behalf.

It forces me at times to take a deep breath and reconsider the ass- stomping I think someone deeply deserves. Seriously, it reminds me that 1. GOD is in charge, 2. Our Lord was a forgiver of all. 3. Do not judge for that is the Lord's realm. 4. By being an asshole am I letting the Lord be seen thru me.

Absolutely,