Proverbs 3:6, NIV
“In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Colin and I were driving up the motorway in a direction we don’t normally go, and we didn’t know the area very well. The motorway was congested and I was in the left hand lane, wanting to go straight on. Suddenly there was a sign saying ‘exit only’, and I had to come off where I didn`t want to. I got on to a side road and started looking for a way to get back on the motorway. Horror of horrors at that exit I couldn`t get back on! So I thought of taking a detour to try to get back.

I took another turn without really knowing where I was going. The signs were all places I hadn`t heard of, hadn`t been to, and didn`t want. Then, as I took another turn, I found it was a ‘no through road’. As I came to the farm gate and looked at the field of cows, I realised it was a ‘dead end’.

Actually in my car I have something called SmartNav and I can press a button and go on to a call centre. They can see exactly where I am, as my car is trackable by satellite. I can tell them what destination I want, and they’ll guide me through.

Why didn’t I do that as soon as I came off the motorway? I got completely lost, because I thought I knew a better way. Then God spoke. He said, ‘It’s so easy to take a wrong turn. It’s so easy to get on a wrong road. But you can be sure taking wrong turns will end up in a dead end.’

Taking wrong turns in our life causes us to take a wrong road, and it leads to a dead end. ‘I will direct your path’, says God, ‘submit your way to me and I will direct the way you should go’.

In 1 Samuel 15, Samuel confronts Saul over his disobedience. Saul had enjoyed the blessing of God, but then he failed to carry out His instructions concerning the Amalekites. God had said to destroy all the Amalekites and their possessions. Saul had allowed Agag the king to live and the soldiers to loot their possessions. When he was confronted by Samuel he lied about what he’d done and blamed his team! From this time on, his life was marked with fear and paranoia. He continued to make wrong turns and go down wrong roads. Finally he faced an absolute dead end. He fell on his sword in the battlefield. He and his sons died altogether on the same day. What a terrible end to a king who started so well. Dead ends lead to death.

What do we do when someone personally confronts us about our sin? I believe we should respond by pausing, and allowing the Holy Spirit to convict us through that person. God’s the only One who can help when we’re lost, we’ve done it our own way, and we’ve made a mess. The only thing to do then is to submit ourselves to God, and ask Him to navigate our way back on to the sure road that leads to life.

Prayer: Father God, You’re all wise and ever faithful. We can be confident that when we make a mess of our lives, having taken the wrong turn, we can turn back to You and You’ll help us to find our way back. Help us Lord to repent, be obedient, and be willing to submit to Your lordship in every area of our lives. We want to turn away from doing it our way to doing it Your way. Thank You, Jesus, for You’re the way, the truth and the life. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 24:36-39, NIV
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

Sometimes even really good news is so extraordinary, and so outside of our capacity to believe, that at first we cannot take it in! It`s sometimes easier not to believe than to believe what your eyes, your ears and all your senses are telling you.

Jesus had told the disciples in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to die. He also told them that on the third day he would be raised again to life. While this knowledge of what Jesus had said would certainly have been in their minds, the reality of seeing this promise fulfilled was so far outside their previous experience that to believe it was stretching their capacity to understand!

It certainly seemed as though what Jesus had said would happen, had happened. For his body was certainly not in the tomb, but no one seemed to know where he was. Had He really been raised from the dead? Their natural understanding of life and death had limits beyond which there ordinary senses could not go. So, Jesus himself appeared to them all and made himself visible before their very eyes. Their first reaction was to think that they were seeing an apparition, a ghost, so Jesus had to say to them, “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have.”

I would love to have been there when the disciples put out their hands and touched his hands and his feet and realised that the One who was standing in front of them really was their Jesus, the one they had walked with and talked with and been blessed by for the past three years. They were indeed experiencing the miracle of the resurrection first-hand.

Yes, a few days ago they had lived through the terrible news of the death of Jesus, but now the good news of the Resurrection was exploding on their understanding and was about to explode into the world. May I encourage you to celebrate today with great thanksgiving and give yourself afresh to the Lord as a loving response to the one who gave everything for you.

Prayer: I am so thrilled, today, Lord, at the wonderful news that we celebrate as believers. I choose, today, to love and serve You as my Saviour and my Lord, both now and for the rest of my days. Amen.

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Luke 9:22, NIV
‘And He said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

I quite often hear people saying something like this – do you want the good news or the bad news? When answering such a question, some people will always go for the good news first, knowing that this will help them cope with whatever bad news might follow. Others will want to hear the bad news first, so that however bad it really is, they know they have something good to look forward to.

In the conversation that Jesus had with his disciples, just prior to our Scripture for today, He had asked the disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” It was the apostle Peter who got the right answer when he said, “the Christ of God.” Peter had really understood through divine revelation who this amazing teacher and healer that they were following really was. God the Father had given him revelation and he had spoken out what God had put into his spirit (Matthew 16: 17).

It was at this moment that the disciples, probably for the first time, really understood that the Rabbi they were following was, indeed, the One who had been prophesied about by Isaiah and many other prophets. I would love to have been there to see the look of amazed revelation that passed across the faces of all the disciples who were present. There would surely have been an explosion of excitement in their emotions as this extraordinary truth about the nature of Jesus began to dawn on their understanding. It could, perhaps, have broken out into premature public revelation and euphoria, for Jesus immediately asked them “not to tell this to anyone.” For while the knowledge of who Jesus really was, and is, was extraordinarily wonderful good news, first there was some bad news that the disciples had to both hear about, and eventually understand, before the full revelation of Jesus, the son of God, could be made to the world.

The bad news that Jesus had to share with them was really bad news. For Jesus then told them that he was going to suffer many things in Jerusalem. He would be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and he must be killed before they could celebrate the good news that on the third day he would be raised again to life.

On this day when the Christian church worldwide remembers the death of our Lord Jesus, my heart is filled with an immeasurable depth of thanksgiving for the one who knew what was ahead of him, but did not turn away from the path of sacrifice – the one and only sacrifice which made it possible for our sins to be forgiven, because our debt was going to be paid for on the cross. Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Prayer: Thank you, Jesus, for your amazing love for sinners such as me. Thank you that You, knowing who You were, still chose to walk the path of sacrifice, so that we may know that God loves us and that we could be redeemed out of the hands of the enemy and enjoy eternal life both now and for evermore. Amen.

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