We have all been there, sick, lying on a bed, desperate for disease to be gone, held captive by a virus or imprisoned by a temporary bout with fever and exhaustion.  Most everyone has experienced the moment when your health fails you.  YOU – ARE – SICK and you know you need help.  You need a doctor and there is no denying it. When we are sick we come face to face with our mortality and our illusion of our control and power.

Why does Easter Matter? Let me spell it out for you…P-O-W-E-R!  Without Jesus, you have none but if you know Jesus you are given the privilege to tap into it.  The same power that conquered the grave lives in you. Realize it, Revel in it, Reveal it, then Roll with it! It’s time to activate our faith!

On Easter, April 8th 217church launches into a new series Live Differently focusing on 4 areas of health:  Spiritual, Financial, Physical and Family.  The only way you will be healthy is through the Power of the resurrection.  One of the things I have come face to face with is the actual weight of this series.  There is a ton of material to cover, a huge amount of work to be done in our hearts, and a multitude of opportunity for us to make excuses for ourselves. But let’s not shrink from the challenge, let’s get transformed against the odds.

So How do we get healthy?  I think this following verse sums up what we need:

“I pray the eyes of your heart will be enlightened in order that you may know the hope in which he has called you to, the riches of his glorious inheritance of His holy people…” (Ephesians 1:18 NIV)

• A Heart Change – You can try harder all you want…and it won’t matter.  You can get an accountability partner…and it won’t matter.  You can read another motivational book…and it won’t matter.  Your heart has to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit.  There is no substitute for real heart change.  Everything else just treats the symptoms. Are you using drugs to treat your symptoms?  What are you “medicating” with? Its a never ending cycle.

• A Hope Transplant – Are you kidding me?  Do I really have to write this?  Yes I do, because I know although many of us have known Jesus for years, we have lost our hope.  Our daughter Lydia was born during a time of discouragement in our life. Her middle name is HOPE.  Her name is a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness.  Hope gives us the strength to make it through one more day.  The resurrection moves us from despair to HOPE!

• An Inheritance By-Pass – We work so hard to accumulate here that we forget the inheritance we already have both HERE and THERE (yes I am talking about earth and heaven)  We worry so much about material things we fare distracted from the spiritual dimension of God’s eternal provision. It sounds incomprehensible, but the inheritance I am getting is NOW through dynamic power of the local church. LATER it will be through the second coming of Jesus because Jesus isn’t dead.  Death has no sting and has been defeated and Jesus is preparing a place for us.  (John 14)

These next 50 days of Live Differently at 217church will be life changing!  It starts with EASTER you NEED to be there.  You will have the opportunity to join a 217group and experience the Live Differently field guide as a heart renewal covenant. How will you make the most of What God will do?

We got this!  That stone rolled away was just the beginning,

It’s on!

Josh