The Easter Seating Chart
While the meaning of Easter evolves around Christ’s resurrection and overcoming death, the holiday means something different to all of us. For many who are believers and followers of Jesus Christ, the recent Easter Sunday Service has come and gone. You wore your Sunday best—or just your best—and made your way to the local church to participate in the celebration service. Or a passover celebration the night before. Or mass. You chanted with the pastor the ancient—yet traditional--proclamation “He is Risen! He is Risen Deed!” because if you’re like me and your grew up in ‘church’ or near a church or had someone in your life that drug you to church, of course this is what you do on Easter Sunday right?
Now the service is yet another faded Easter memory and the message is fading to black in your mind because Monday rolled around and with it came the normal hefty dose of reality—alarm clock, work, school, or get kids ready for school (don’t forget they need food,) and so on.
During the church service you typically walk away with one or two takeaways that you feel you can apply to your life. But when reality strikes just a few hours later, it’s only human and natural and naturally human that we return to our normal routine—whatever ‘normal’ is.
My first question is,
Did Easter change you?
The point is this--either you’re the same today as you were before or you’re not.
The Three Chairs of Faith
Consider the example of three chairs. Our level of faith can be categorized into one of the three. The first chair is firsthand faith. You’re walking with God. You’ve put your full faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and hopefully Lord also. That’s another talk for another day. If you’re asking yourself ‘what does it mean to walk with God?” then you’re not in the first chair.
Second chair faith is second hand faith. You’ve got your faith as you know it through a family member, a friend, or a loved one. But your faith is not your own. It’s on the outside looking in or in many cases living vicariously as we tend to do through someone else’s beliefs or influence in our lives. But it’s not personal and direct. Second chair faith is second hand knowledge which equals no faith. Someone else’s faith is not your faith. Most of the world sits in the second chair.
But the grave reality is second hand faith equals no faith.
Third chair faith equals no faith. The truth is we all have faith. If you have no faith in a supreme being or in this case, God through his Son Jesus, then you have faith that there is another way to live eternally or you have an agnostic or atheistic faith that there is no god and there’s no eternal paradise with God after we die. But no matter which position you take in the third chair, at the end of the day you refuse to accept Jesus Christ on the throne of your life—usually because you’ve ‘got plans.’ You think you know better than God. Or you flat out don’t believe He is who He says He is OR you don’t believe He exists at all. Third chair faith equals no faith in Easter.
Most of the world sits in the second chair.
Your Seat
How did Easter adjust your seating position? Did you move chairs? It's possible you remained in the same position you just upgraded from a folding chair to a recliner. You allowed God through His Spirit to increase your first hand faith and now you are committed to aligning your life more with His purpose for you. Or maybe you’ve discreetly prayed for God to move you from second hand faith to first chair.
My hope is that you don’t sleep until you discover for yourself what it’s like to know Jesus Christ firsthand. Not through your mother or your grandmother or your wife. I hope that after you read this, you confirm your decision to meet God. Let him meet you.
Much like your grandmother, He will come to wherever you are and meet you on a moment’s notice—just faster than her because he doesn’t need an appointment or a flight itinerary. Just an invitation. If you live your entire life and never sit in the first chair, you’ve missed your purpose and your entire reason for existence.
There is no purpose outside of God’s plan for you that you were put on this planet to do. If you miss the first chair, you’ve missed your calling.
If you are a first chair kinda guy, you’ve already put the single most important aspect of your life in the right hands. Every day is a battle. If you aren’t aware of this, then it means you’re getting whipped badly. Again, another talk for another day. But you have the tools in your toolbox and it all begins with Christ taking up residence inside of you. Either He is your king or you are. Or something or someone else you’ve allowed into your life. Could be anything—money, a girl, a child, a life goal. The Bible says ‘no one can serve two masters.’ You can have first chair faith but still struggle and miss why you are here in the first place.
There is a roar and a rumble inside of you battling for the throne daily in your life.
Every hour of every day we choose to live for Jesus Christ or for ourselves.
Ask yourself today, if it’s the last thing you do before you call it a day,
“What seat am I in?
And then simply talk to God, just like you would talk to a close friend here in the R&R lounge, ask Him for help in upgrading your seat and I promise He will be standing and waiting with a first-class ticket with your name on it.
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