{"id":12204,"date":"2020-04-10T05:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T10:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=12204"},"modified":"2020-04-10T05:24:08","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T10:24:08","slug":"hes-a-good-good-father-on-this-good-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=12204","title":{"rendered":"He\u2019s a Good, Good Father on this Good Friday!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m smiling because I posted this family photo on what is supposed to be a somber, serious day. But is it really? Were it not for THIS day, we wouldn\u2019t have an Easter. This photo was taken at our church in Shawnee, OK. It was a big deal to dress up for Easter. Had to have new Easter outfits and an Easter bonnet. I had enough hair back then that served as all the hat I needed. After church, it was all about the Easter egg hunt. The kids would have a spirited time of finding them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remembering that Easter fanfare, as sweet as those times were, doesn\u2019t hold a candle to this year\u2019s Easter experiences. It seems the frivolous things were, well, just frivolous. Oh, I\u2019m sure many will still be having Easter egg hunts in their backyards, but because we\u2019re nestled into our homes, it\u2019s easier to hone into what Easter is really all about. Introspection of the holy of holiest times that goes from Friday’s sorrows to Sunday’s alleluias!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Did you sleep well last night? Jesus didn\u2019t. He had not been to sleep! All night long and in this day, He was interrogated, lied about, beatened, tortured, suffered and died on a cross that was meant for murderers and thieves. Today is Good Friday! Good? How could this day be called GOOD?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t help but consider all our world is going through right now. Maybe some \u201cGood Friday\u201d issues like the suffering, the dying, and so many unknowns. I get it. The struggles are real \u2013 lost jobs, financial insecurity, kids testing every nerve their parents have because they\u2019re not used to isolation, the concerns for our medical field and essential services workers. It is truly a time like we could never imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I titled this post \u201cHe\u2019s a Good, Good Father on this Good Friday\u201d. Really? How could a Dad be called a \u201cgood dad\u201d when He allows His Son to die in such a horrific way? \u201cYet it was the LORD\u2019s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer \u2026\u201d (Isaiah 53:10). Of all the powerful verses in the Bible, this one brings me to my knees. How much does God the Father love us? Enough to sacrifice His only Son. Because the death of His Son would bring salvation to His children. That means salvation to you and to me and to all who know Him as Savior and Lord. Indeed, He is our good, good Father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But, how could this day be called GOOD? Because out of the appallingly bad came what was inexpressibly good. And the good trumps the bad because the bad was temporary while the good is eternal. God\u2019s love and grace came to us soaked in divine blood. The Cross is God\u2019s answer to the question, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you do something about evil?\u201d \u201cWhy do You let bad things happen to good people?\u201d God did do something. One look at His Son on the cross should silence the argument that God doesn’t care about human suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without Jesus\u2019 death, we could never know Him. We could never have eternal life. Our salvation cost a lot. And Jesus thought \u201cthey\u2019re worth it\u201d. And that is what\u2019s so good about Good Friday. There is no such thing as a resurrection without a death. There is no such thing as an Easter without a Good Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is this message? For us, to never again wonder if we are loved. God thought our eternal life was worth the death of His only Son. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, would never perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Now, we know why God is a good, good Father and why this day is called “Good Friday”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m smiling because I posted this family photo on what is supposed to be a somber, serious day. But is it really? Were it not for THIS day, we wouldn\u2019t have an Easter. This photo was taken at our church in Shawnee, OK. It was a big deal to dress up for Easter. Had to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12635,17018,17019],"tags":[1210,1769,1083,1417,8000,17016,873,3282,1743,103,3317,1201,17015,17017,40,593,16799,1609,7518],"class_list":["post-12204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cross","category-good-friday","category-good-good-father","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-church","tag-cross","tag-dad","tag-dying","tag-easter","tag-easter-egg-hunt","tag-eternal-life","tag-evil","tag-good-friday","tag-good-good-father","tag-good-night-sleep","tag-human-suffering","tag-inspiration","tag-john-316","tag-pandemic","tag-son","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12210,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12204\/revisions\/12210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}