I’m so happy the Easter Story doesn\u2019t end with the resurrection. There’s so much more! The next verse in John 20:19 says this: \u201cThat Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.” They locked the door, they shut themselves off, they locked away the world. Out of fear. And what does Jesus do? He shows up in spite of locked doors and says “Peace be with you”! Can you imagine? \u201cHere today and gone tomorrow. Gone yesterday, here today!\u201d Abracadabra! He was there…..right there!
The disciples were hiding because they were afraid. Bless their hearts. I can\u2019t blame them. The Lord had been crucified and maybe they were next. They didn\u2019t grasp the words of Jesus that they had heard throughout the three years they were with Him. He said over and over \u201cDo not fear!\u201d “Do not be afraid!”
Today, you may have things that you are really afraid of — spiritually\/ emotionally\/physically. You may be really afraid. It\u2019s okay. We\u2019ve all felt that way; we\u2019ve all been there. And what we want to do when we are afraid, is lock the doors. Don\u2019t do it. Hear the words of Jesus \u2013 peace. He has this. He\u2019s alive. He has overcome. We don\u2019t have to be afraid. We don\u2019t. Trust. Love. Laugh. Live. We don\u2019t have to lock the doors of our hearts anymore. We can trust. We can. Today, and each day.
I read a precious mom\u2019s FB post a couple of days ago. She is pregnant with triplets and while one baby appears to be healthy, he\/she is being compromised by the other two who have major issues. That is reason enough to fear. But, I also read how she is choosing joy and peace in the midst of their crisis. And, like that young mom, we can\u2019t protect ourselves from pain. But every day we can choose faith, joy, and peace over fear.
Suddenly Jesus was in the disciples’ presence. Fear must bow to the presence of God. When we invite Him into our circumstances, peace comes in with Him. Suddenly everything He said over and over again was true. The disciples had a history with Him and so do I. I survived many crises and I\u2019m still standing. The faithful God of my past is my trustworthy and faithful God today. When I\u2019m afraid, I need to welcome His presence into my room and my heart \u2013 turning on worship music, finding solace in prayer and fellowship with other faith-filled friends. Bottom line, I chase fear away with knowing that right in the middle of my \u201clocked doors\u201d is Jesus in the room with me and because He\u2019s here, I know Romans 8:28 will be the end result! \u201cWe know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose.” Let’s unlock the door of our hearts today. We won’t give into fear. We welcome the sweet presence of Jesus in and we receive His peace! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m so happy the Easter Story doesn\u2019t end with the resurrection. There’s so much more! The next verse in John 20:19 says this: \u201cThat Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.” They locked the door, they shut themselves off, they locked away the world. Out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9967,"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":[12901],"tags":[12897,12899,12894,1158,267,1375,7858,12900,12895,41,12896,44,12898,877,378,545],"class_list":["post-9966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fear","tag-afraid","tag-bound-by-fear","tag-disciples-easter","tag-do-not-fear","tag-faith","tag-fear","tag-fear-not","tag-hes-alive","tag-john-2019","tag-joy","tag-locked-door","tag-peace","tag-reason-to-fear","tag-resurrection","tag-romans-828","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9966","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=9966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9969,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9966\/revisions\/9969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}