When we think about Easter, we often think about what happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you think about the disciples of Jesus who lived through those days, maybe you can imagine the mixed emotions that they felt.

On Friday, Jesus was taken by the guards. Then He was tortured, crucified, and then He died.

The One they were following for a while now, the One they believed was the promised Messiah, was now dead. They were hopeless, desperate, afraid. They probably lost their faith.

At this point, we usually fast forward to Sunday, when Jesus resurrected and many of His disciples saw Him. In a matter of seconds, they went from feeling total hopelessness to extreme joy.

Jesus was alive! If they ever had any doubts, now they were all gone.

But we often don’t mention Saturday. When we talk about Easter, we usually skip from Jesus’ death to His resurrection. But unfortunately to the disciples, they weren’t able to fast forward through that Saturday.

God created man. Man fell, by disobeying God. The perfect relationship between Creator and creature was broken. What could be done?

When God created man and gave him free will, He knew that He was giving man the opportunity to choose between having a relationship with Him or walking away. Man chose to walk away (Genesis chapter 3). That choice affected every human being that descended from the original couple, so everyone is born apart from God.

What was God willing to do to allow man to have access to Him again? The answer is: everything!

From the beginning, God knew that what man did by himself, by choosing to break the relationship between them, man could never mend by himself. No ordinary man would ever be good enough and worthy enough to be able to do it.

So He did the unthinkable: He sacrificed Himself.

You probably have already heard someone say that “all paths lead to God”. Well, not according to the Bible, no, they don’t.

When it comes to God, there is always right and wrong, good and bad, light and darkness. So you should expect that there is a way that leads to God and at least another way that doesn’t.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

So there it is. Indeed, not all paths lead to God. Not only that, but the right path is harder to find and most people don’t go through it.

So what is the right way? How can you identify the correct path to follow?

Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, LORD, are good. (Psalm 25:6,7)

David wrote this Psalm during the time when Saul was persecuting him. He had been anointed king a while before that time, and then he had to flee because his life was in danger. Saul wanted to kill him. He probably didn’t understand why this was happening to him.

So he cries out to the Lord for help. But before asking for anything else, he asks God to remember His great mercy and love. He needed them! Then David asks Him not to remember the sins of his youth and his rebellious ways. And finally, he asks God to remember him according to His love.

He knew that, if it was only up to justice, maybe he wouldn’t deserve to be rescued from that situation. If God measured his righteousness according to His memory, he would be in trouble.

I have heard many people say that Jesus was a high spirit, or a good role model, a good teacher, a prophet, etc, but they don’t acknowledge Him as God. However, Jesus Himself affirmed that He was God.

Jesus’ words and actions shows us that:

• He called Himself the son of God, making Himself equal to God (check this post).
• He forgave sins, which only God can do (see Mark 2:5-12).
• He has characteristics that are only attributed to God. He has absolute power (see Matthew 28:18, John 13:3), omniscience (see John 16:30), omnipresence (see Matthew 18:20) and eternity (see Colossians 1:17).
• He accepted worship, which is allowed only to God (see Matthew 14:33, Philippians 2:10-11, Hebrews 1:6).

The authors of the New Testament had no doubt in their minds about the divinity of Jesus: see John 1:1, Romans 9:5, Philippians 2:6, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, 1 John 5:20.

You have certainly heard a lot of times people referring to Jesus as the Messiah, including the biblical authors. The word Messiah has also been used in other situations and other media, like motion pictures, but people usually don’t know the true meaning of this word.

Messiah is a hebrew word, which is the same as the greek word Christ, and they mean “The Anointed One”. So when people started calling Jesus “the Christ”, it was the same as saying “Jesus the Messiah” and “Jesus the Anointed One”.

According to the Bible, anointing (which means ” pouring or smearing with oil”) is the act of  separating someone or something for a sacred purpose, for God.

But still, why did they call Jesus “the Anointed One”? There were many people in biblical times that were anointed, what was so special about the promised Messiah?

Simon Peter (or simply Peter) is one of the most known and beloved apostles of Jesus Christ. His ups and downs showed us a flawed human being, but Jesus still wanted to use Him.

Peter denied Jesus three times the night He was captured, tortured and later crucified. After Jesus was resurrected, He talked to Peter and asked him to feed and take care of His sheep (that’s how He referred to His followers). Jesus Himself said that a good shepherd needs to be willing to give his life for his sheep. Would Peter be bold enough to do it?

Up until now, He had never showed the courage to risk his life. Could Peter change so much that he could be the man that Jesus wanted him to be?

You are probably familiar with the apostle Peter’s story. He was a fisherman until he was called by Jesus to laid down his net and be a fisher of man, a preacher of the Gospel.

Jesus called other fishermen to be His disciples as well, but there is one episode in Peter’s life that shows us more of his nature as a flawed human being like ourselves.

It happened shortly before the crucifixion. Jesus was explaining to the disciples what would happen to Him in a matter of hours. When He said that He was going to be taken away, Peter guaranteed to Jesus that he would stick with Him, he would even lay down his life for Him. Jesus responded saying that in that very night, before the rooster would crow, Peter would deny Him three times (John 13:31-38).

In fact, later that night, before the sunrise, Peter denied to know Jesus three times (John 18:15-27), exactly as Jesus had anticipated.

When that rooster crowed, Peter must have felt awful. He realized that he let Jesus down, and Jesus knew it all along.