As far as Christian holidays go, Christmas and Easter are the “big 2.” In the church calendar, much is made about these two special days. At Christmas, we celebrate Jesus’s birth. At Easter, we celebrate Jesus’s death and resurrection. Special worship services, family meals, and even presents are exchanged around each holiday.
Though these two holidays are both very important, have you ever found that (unlike Christmas) Easter kind of sneaks up on you every year? I certainly have felt that way. I believe Easter surprises us for a variety of reasons:
- Unlike Christmas, Easter moves each year. Sometimes it is in March, other times April.
- Unlike Christmas, the Easter season is much less celebrated by our culture.
- Unlike Christmas, there are not many “Easter Albums” of songs sung by your favorite country or rock recording artist.
All that said, we don’t have to let our calendars, culture, or Spotify playlist tell us when we can and cannot celebrate what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, this Easter season, we want to focus on the person of Jesus Christ. Over a period of 6+ weeks leading up to Easter Sunday (April 5, 2015), we have prepared a variety of devotionals to focus our hearts on Jesus. Each week contains six devotionals (one for every day except Sunday). We have entitled these devotionals (and the sermon series which will be running over this same span at Wildwood Community Church) – “Passion Road: Meeting Jesus on the Way to the Cross.” These devotionals will walk through five different sections:
- Parables of Jesus (February 17-21): We will kick off our study by looking at a number of parables that Jesus taught during His earthly ministry. These parables help us to understand God’s heart and the kind of things Jesus talked about while on the earth.
- Power of Jesus (February 23-28): On these days, we will look at some of Jesus’ s miracles to prepare our hearts in celebration of the world’s greatest miracle, the resurrection. Miracles are intended to be a redirection of man’s attention: away from the mundane events of everyday life and toward the mighty acts of God. The power of Jesus is seen clearly through His miraculous works.
- Purpose of Jesus (March 2 -7): On these days, we will look at several passages in the four Gospels that reveal the purpose of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.
- Perspective on Jesus (March 9-21): On these days, we will look throughout the New Testament Epistles to see the many perspectives of what Jesus accomplished through His life and death.
- Passion of Jesus (March 23 – April 4): On these days, we will zero in on the last week of Jesus’s life. We will focus on the Gospel of John and will walk our way from John 12-20 to see the death and resurrection of Jesus in full detail.
We hope and pray that this guide helps prepare your heart for worship this Easter season.
— Mark Robinson and Jonathan Holmes
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If you are looking for a devotional book to use for yourself (or your family) this Easter season, check this out. The price is good (FREE) and you can access this devotional in 6 ways:
- Download a pdf copy of the devotional guide here: Passion Road Devo.
- Download the ebook copy of the Passion Road Devotional – for Kindle/iPad/iPhone
- Check back to this blog daily between February 18 and April 5 to view the daily devotional.
- If you are a member of Wildwood, each day’s devotional will be accessible via Wildwood’s “City” online network.
- Print copies are available at Wildwood on Sundays while supplies last.
- Access each day’s devotional via the Wildwood IOS app (if you have an iPad or iPhone). The devotionals will be published to this app beginning February 18. You can download the app via the iTunes Store here.
Each day’s devotional should take about 10-15 minutes to compete, and includes a Scripture passage, a devotional thought, questions for discussion, and prayer prompts.
May this devotional help you worship this Easter Season!