One of the most special times of the year for a believer in Christ is Easter. It’s essentially the whole reason the religion exists in the first place. Without Jesus Christ rising from the dead, there’s no salvation for sins. It’s just as critical for the Lord to have risen from the grave as it is that he bore our sins on the cross and died to pay our debt to God the Father. Many will take the week of Easter to reflect on their salvation and what Jesus had to endure in order to make it possible.
Which is exactly what Christian actress Jen Lilley discusses in a pair of Easter video devotionals that were produced for Great American Family, both of which she states were the result of studying God’s Word for hours. And that’s a practice more believers need to get into. Studying the Bible. I mean, I get it, we don’t all have hours to spend each and every day, but even just 20 minutes doing an in-depth study of a passage of Scripture can be life-changing.
Here’s more from Christian Headlines:
Great American Family officials initially asked her to record one video. Lilley, though, responded by asking them if she could make two. They agreed. Great American Family officials initially asked her to record one video. Lilley, though, responded by asking them if she could make two. They agreed.
“It is hard for me to stop talking when I talk about Jesus because I just get extremely excited,” she went on to say to ChristianHeadlines, giving a chuckle.
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Lilley is known for her roles in such Great American Family/Great American Pure Flix movies as Paris Christmas Waltz and B&B Merry.
She recorded a Palm Sunday video that launched on Great American Family’s social media channels this week and an Easter video that will debut this weekend.
“God knew before the foundations of the world were ever laid that He would take the most difficult route to adopt you and I as His children — and He still did it. There is nothing stronger than Christ and Christ crucified. That’s the simple message that we get away from,” she stated during her interview with ChristianHeadlines.
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And this is what makes the love of God so amazing. He did not have to save us, to make us part of His family. It’s not something we as sinners deserve. The only thing we’ve earned is His judgment. And yet, out of love and grace He sent Jesus to deliver us from the punishment that was rightfully ours. Jesus lived a totally sinless life, earning righteousness we could never earn ourselves, and then, by faith, imputes that righteousness to us, and takes on our sin, so that we can be declared justified and adopted into His family.
Simply mind-blowing.
In the videos posted by Lilley, she talks at great length about the biblical way to observe Passover.
“After the Passover lambs were inspected for four days and found spotless, starting on the evening of Passover, the high priest would sacrifice the lambs and then at 3 p.m. the next day, when the last lamb was killed, the high priest would say, ‘It is finished.’ Now after Jesus went into the temple and was questioned for four days and found blameless, He celebrated Passover, which we call the Last Supper, and then that same night He was betrayed and handed over to Pontius Pilate, where He was tried and tortured all night and then handed over to be crucified,” Lilley goes on to explain in her Easter video. “He was hung on the cross the next day, and at 3 p.m., He yelled, ‘It is finished’ as He breathed his last breath.
“As soon as He died,” Lilley continued, “the curtain in the temple separating the people from the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence was, tore from top to bottom. So on Easter, Jesus was both our perfect and final Passover lamb and our high priest. He saved us from death and He offered us new life and His blood became the door to access the holy of holies to God’s presence. So now both of us, you and me, Jews and Gentiles alike, are able to be God’s children. Isn’t that amazing? So that’s what Easter means to me. It’s my God today and hopefully it’s yours.”
While filming “Paris Christmas Waltz,” Lilley spent a lot of her down time reading a book about the Passover, which led into the hours of study of the biblical holy day.
“I just remember reading this in my hotel room alone, and just sobbing in awe of the Lord,” she said.
God is good.