An Easter Full of Joy

This sweet girl is the daughter of another family of missionaries serving here in Florence. We had the pleasure of spending Easter with them.

Dear Friends and Family,

As we start a new week after all of the celebrations of this past Holy week, we would like to share with you a couple of the amazing promises that our Lord has given us in the Scriptures. We hope that these promises encourage and solidify your already growing joy in the sovereignty of God. 

1. God gives us everlasting and eternal joy in His sustaining grace because we know that all He desires is to do good to us. 

"And they shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good, and for the good of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me. And I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul." (Jeremiah 32:38-41)

2. We will never taste death but will forever taste the abundant life that only Christ gives us because of His resurrection. 

" When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55)

"Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers." (1 John 3:14)

3. We all can live and work for the glory of Christ because all of the immutable promises we have forever through Jesus Christ. 

"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." (1 Corinthians 15:58)

"For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." (Romans 14:8-9)

These promises are what fuels us daily to not care about our lives, but to live in this vapor of a life, for the glorious giver of eternal life. 

We love you all very much and are so thankful that you pray for us. 

Justin & Carli