Dear Friends,

I hope my post today finds you doing well. It’s been a while since my last post. Life gets hectic at times as you know and such has been the case here.

Tomorrow is my favorite day of the year. Easter is the day we remember the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

During this time of year, the carpenter bees show up here in Mississippi. They are all over the place where we live right now. Did you know that male bees don’t have stingers? The male carpenter bee has yellow on its head whereas the female (that can sting) has a completely black head. Go here to read more about the absence of stingers in male bees and wasps.

Some years ago, a friend got me to catching male bees in my hand as they hummed around our azalea blooms in the early spring. My grandchildren are fascinated, as am I, with the commotion the bees can make in your cupped hand and yet their inability to do you harm in any way. They are just “noise.” After a moment or so, I release the bee(s) unharmed.

One day as I was entertaining one of the grandkids with a clearly irate bee in my hand that was buzzing like a buzz saw, the following Scripture came to mind from I Corinthians 15:55 (ESV, Bible)

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Part a of I Corinthians 15:56 says “The sting of sin is death”

Let me share the end of the story that’s in I Corinthians 15: 57:

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Bible’s account of mankind from the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit is that sin has stung mankind with spiritual death. But God so loved mankind that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to this world to become a sacrifice for our sin; to take upon Himself our spiritual death. Jesus accomplished His mission to provide for salvation of mankind when He arose the third day, having conquered sin, death and the grave. But it’s left for each person to decide what to do about Jesus Christ.

One of the clearest scriptures in all the Bible is found in I John 5: 12. It states:

“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Jesus has paid off the debt of your sin and of my sin and tomorrow we remember that the job is done as we celebrate His resurrection. Anyone who receives Jesus Christ, receives His life and sin has lost its stinger for that person. Spiritual death has been destroyed.

John 3: 16-18

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. 18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

I consider tomorrow’s celebration of Easter to be the Super Bowl of the Christian faith. May God bless each of you and may you have a blessed Easter.

See you next time.