Jesus – Karen Gamble Writes

Pick Up Your Cross…

Have you ever heard the phrase, “pick up your cross”?

It’s part of a verse where Jesus says, “pick up your cross and follow Me,”.

This is a good, important thing to do.

It’s one of the basic parts of being a Christian.

To pick up our cross means to pick up the practice of obeying Christ and whatever calling He has placed on our life, to choose to lay our self aside, and to follow Him wherever He leads us.

Have you ever read the entire verse?

It’s found in Matthew 16:24 and says,

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. (NIV)

Did you catch that?

It says to deny yourself.

Too often we try to follow Christ while still doing things our own way and living life on our terms.

Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Obedience, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Good Friday 2026

It’s Good Friday – the day we remember Jesus and how He willingly gave up His life to pay for our sins so we can be reconciled with the Father through His precious blood atonement. .

I praise Him for His sacrifice and thank Him for His immeasurable gift!

“He Himself bore our sins” in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” He said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. Three days later He will rise.” Mark 10:33-34 (NIV)

To learn more about Good Friday, please visit my post, What Is Good Friday?

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

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Easter 2026

It’s almost Easter!

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week.

During this week Christians from around the world will remember Jesus and His crucifixion, as they celebrate His resurrection.

I hope you will take time to reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice and what it means for us as believers.

If you would like to know more about Easter, please check out these links to previous posts:

What Is Easter?

What Is Palm Sunday?

What Is Holy Week?

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

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What is Salvation?

You’ve probably heard the words Saved or Salvation used by Christians.

What does it mean in this context?

It means saved from our sins.

See, back when God first created the world He created a beautiful garden and placed two people in it – Adam and Eve.

They lived a beautiful and blessed life.

There was no sin.

There was no pain.

There was just joy.

Unfortunately, they made a really bad choice that ended all that.

When God placed them in the Garden of Eden, He told them about two trees that were there.

One was the Tree of Life; the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God made it very clear they could eat of any tree in the garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The enemy came to Eve, disguised as a serpent, to tempt her into eating the fruit of the only tree God had told them to stay away from.

She not only ate it, she shared it with Adam.

When they ate this fruit, their eyes were opened to see the difference between good and evil.

It was at the moment Eve yielded to the serpent’s temptation and ate the fruit that sin entered the world.

Because of this, God made them leave the garden so they would not eat from the Tree of Life.

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What Is Maundy Thursday?

Maundy Thursday is an important, though often overlooked, part of Holy Week.

A lot of things happened on Maundy Thursday.

Among them:

Jesus celebrated the Passover in the Upper Room with His disciples.

We now call this meal the Last Supper because it was the last time He shared a meal with them before His crucifixion.

It was during this meal Jesus instituted Communion as a way of remembering Him.

At the end of the meal, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as a show of humility and as an example of how He wanted them to humbly serve others.

Following the Last Supper meal, Jesus and the Disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, located at the Mount of Olives.

Here Jesus went off alone to pray.

He asked the Father to take this cup away if possible, meaning the Crucifixion He was about to experience, but immediately followed it up with, “Yet, not my will, Father, Yours be done.”

Jesus knew what was coming.

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The Last Supper

The night before He was crucified, Jesus celebrated the beginning of Passover with His disciples.

This meal is often called the Last Supper because it was the last meal Jesus shared with His followers.

During the Last Supper is when Jesus instituted the act of Communion (also called the Lord’s Supper).

He broke a loaf of bread and said it was a symbol of His body being broken for us.

He then poured a cup of wine and told them to drink, explaining it was a symbol of His blood being shed for the redemption of our sins.

Jesus instructed them to do this in remembrance of Him.

In churches today, we periodically celebrate Communion by drinking a small amount of wine or grape juice and eating a small piece of unleavened bread.*

This is to remind us that Jesus’ body was broken for our healing and that He paid a high price to ransom us. .

When we participate in Communion we are reminded of the great sacrifice Jesus made by dying for us and we are acknowledging we know He did it for us personally.

While Jesus and the disciples were at this meal, Jesus told them He knew one of them was a traitor who would betray Him.

He even went so far as to name Judas as the one.

Judas immediately left and went straight to the leaders and priests to tell them where to find Jesus.

This led to Jesus being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane later that same night.

After the meal, they sang a hymn and left the Upper Room to go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Judas knew that’s where they would be and that is where he brought the leaders and priests to arrest Jesus.

This arrest meant the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

It also meant the beginning of His trial, which led to His Crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

To learn more about what happened next, please read my post, Jesus Was Arrested.

*Because the bread used during Passover is unleavened, it is tradition to use unleavened bread during Communion.

To read about the Last Supper, please see Matthew 26:17-30, or Luke 22:7-23

To learn more about the Easter Season, please visit my Easter page, a compilation of previous Easter and Lent posts.

Category: Death, God, Holiday, Jesus | LEAVE A COMMENT

Why Jesus Was Crucified

There is a passage in the New Testament where the crowds are mocking Jesus while He’s on the cross.

One of the rulers even says to Him, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” Luke 23:35 (NIV)

They didn’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God.

It is important we understand that Jesus was fully God, as well as fully man, and as such He had the power to prevent the Crucifixion.

He could have called down legions of angels to fight for and protect Him.

He could have killed all the people who were against Him.

But, He didn’t.

Jesus knew He’d come to earth for one reason – to fulfill God’s plan for mankind’s redemption by going to the cross and paying for all sin for all mankind once and for all.

Jesus was perfect and had lived a completely sin-free life.

By being crucified, He was paying for all the sins of all mankind.

He was trading His perfect life, which fulfilled all the law of the Old Testament for the redemption of all the sin-filled lives of every person ever born. .

He knew many would reject Him.

He knew many would not understand.

He also knew many would accept Him and the free pardon of sin He offered.

Jesus went through with the crucifixion because He loved all of mankind past, present, and future and He wanted to ransom each and every person ever born.

Category: Death, Faith, God, Jesus, New Testament | LEAVE A COMMENT

Why Easter’s Date Changes

It seems like Easter is never on the same Sunday.

In some years it’s in March and in others it’s in April.

There’s a reason for that.

Not long after Christ died there was disagreement among Christians about when Easter should be celebrated.

Because the original Crucifixion had happened at Passover, many people felt it should be held close to that.

Others felt it wasn’t right to tie a Christian holiday (Easter) to a Jewish one (Passover).

After a lot of arguing the decision was made by the First Council of Nicene to use a set standard to calculate Easter each year.

The standard is that Easter is held on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox.

This is very similar to how Passover is calculated.

Passover typically begins on the evening of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.

There is one big difference, though.

Category: God, Holiday, Jesus, New Testament, Truth | LEAVE A COMMENT

A Bittersweet Entry

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Palm Sunday story.

As well known as the story is, I think there is another side to it.

A side many people miss.

What they miss is seeing the day from Jesus’ point of view.

When people think about Palm Sunday, they usually think about how Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a colt with people laying palm branches before Him, shouting,

“Hosanna! Glory to God in the highest!” John 12:12-15 (NIV)

Many people loved Jesus so they cheered for Him loudly.

This was a very special and important time.

Jesus was declaring Himself king in a very humble way.

He was fulfilling prophecy that spoke of Him being the Messiah. (Zechariah 9:9)

It was a time of celebration.

That’s a very important part of the story.

What a lot of people don’t realize, though…

It was also a time of sadness.

A few minutes earlier, as Jesus was preparing to ride into Jerusalem, He looked on the city and cried.

He saw this city full of people He loved so much – people He was about to die for.

He knew that many of them did not love Him back and that many would perish because of this lack of love.

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Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season.

It is a time we stop, examine ourselves, and reflect on what Jesus did for us when He died on the cross.

It is a time we stop and consider whether we are walking worthy of Christ or whether we need to repent and change how we do certain things, both big and small.

We do this by looking deep within ourselves to see whether there’s anything we need to bring to the Lord in prayer and repentance.

It is my hope that during this season you will take time to reflect on all Christ has done for us and will draw nearer to HIm than you’ve ever been as you remember the mercy He has shown us with His death, burial, and resurrection.

You might also like to read my post, What Is Ash Wednesday? or my post on the The Lenten Season.

To learn more about the Easter Season, please visit my Easter page, a compilation of previous Easter and Lent posts.

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