#easter countdown

[booserina]

Bunny Countdown. 🐰 🐣 🌷

[booserina]

Easter Countdown. 2 days. Looking forward to a happy holiday. 🐰✝️🌷🐣

[trappedinfairyland]

happi easter! 🐣🌷🐇

[booserina]

Just a few more days… Easter is on its way!

[thecedarseasons]

Easter Countdown Craft

I am so excited about this post (and the upcoming ones)! My weekend was filled with Easter crafting and making. It's definitely beginning to be that time of year where all my ideas go crazy in my head and I end up making/creating more than any person needs! So get ready for them all!  

 *A Dozen Days of Easter*

 The first fun craft is this adorable Easter Countdown. I know most of us with kiddos do a countdown to Christmas, and I thought both of these Holiday's are extremely important so why not do a countdown for Easter as well!  

*Materials*

This craft, although extremely fun, takes a bit of forethought. You'll need 12 plastic Easter Eggs, 1 paper egg carton, scrap/construction paper, hot glue, green paper grass, colored sharpies, decorations (stickers, glitter of whatever you have) and of course 12 treats, notes or toys.

 *Create*

Using your crafting supplies decorate the top, it does not have to look exactly like mine, but make it custom for the child (or adult) you are creating it for! After the outside is decorated, open up the carton and decorate the inside top. It just happened that my egg carton had the perfect Bible Verse for the occasion, so I made sure to showcase it well. Then using the glue, add grass to the outer edge of the egg separators. Make sure you let the glue cool or dry before putting in the eggs. Label each egg from 1 to 12, add the treats and place the eggs in the carton!  

 Then begin on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 by opening the first egg (or your kiddos will). You can either begin with the number twelve to count backwards or begin with one and count up the days.

 *Have Fun*

I hope you have enjoyed this little crafting idea!

Make it for someone you love, they will be thrilled with it, my son is!

 There is more exciting and fun Easter/Spring crafts and recipes coming soon, follow us to be sure you don't miss them!

 Blessings Always

 

[jackrambles-blog]

Day 19

Easter Countdown

DAILY READING:  The Gospel of John - Chapter 19

John 19:38-40 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 

Navigating his way through the dark corridors of Jerusalem, for secret meetings with Jesus, was nothing out of the ordinary for Nicodemus.  It had become his custom.  His mind and his heart had divorced long ago.   By day, he was a Pharisee, but by night he was a follower of Jesus.  

Nicodemus was a member of an elite group -- a group that was without question the most powerful religious order in all of Middle Eastern civilization.  As fate would have it, this same sect was also leading a violently-charged movement to silence Jesus.  For this reason, each time Nicodemus met with Jesus, he was risking everything.  But he was thoroughly convinced that choosing to not meet with Jesus would be an even greater risk.  His religious peers dealt with the temporal, while Jesus never stopped talking about the eternal.  Nicodemus had come to believe a temporal risk would be worth an eternal reward.  

Nicodemus still remembered the first night he had snuck away for a lantern-lit rendezvous with Jesus.  The question Jesus had first asked him still echoed in his heart, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”

Nicodemus longed to learn more from Jesus!  He had never heard a man teach the Scriptures as the Nazarene did.  But he would never ask another question of Jesus.  This night-time excursion was different than all the rest.  Jesus was dead.  

As Nicodemus traversed the cobblestones streets of his homeland, secretly making his way to the hidden holding place of Jesus’ horrifically beaten and tortured body, one statement made to him by the now dead Son of God, rang out above all the rest in his soul.  In truth, it was only in this moment that the prophetic declaration finally made sense to his Pharisaical mind.  Chills went down his spine, as he rehearsed Jesus’ lesson on eternal life, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

PRAYER:  God thank you for your love.  You loved me enough to send your Son to die in my place.  I believe in Jesus, His death, burial, and resurrection.  I am overwhelmed with gratefulness, as I recognize Him as Savior and Lord! 

[jackrambles-blog]

Day 13

John 13:21-26 After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus[f] of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 

A betrayal was coming to the ranks of Jesus inner circle.  None knew what it would look like or how it would play out.  But in their midst was a back-stabbing scoundrel.  

Jesus decided it was time to identify him.   He called the room to attention and made a simple declaration, "It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it."  

Jesus broke off a piece of the unleavened bread and took a cup of wine from the table.  He dipped the bread in the cup and identified the mastermind behind his impending betrayal -- by handing the sopped bread to Judas.

Have you ever betrayed Jesus?  Have you ever confessed your love to Him during a moment of worshipful dedication only to soon after betray your commitment with an act of fleshly indulgence?

I have. 

For this reason, each year during Communion on Good Friday, rather than eating the bread and then drinking from the cup, I instead dip the bread into the cup.  This act of worship typically sends chills up my spine, as I mimic the way in which Jesus used the bread and wine to identify His betrayer.  

Dip the bread.  Acknowledge your betrayal of Jesus.  Then make way for the flood of His grace to overwhelm your soul.  

PRAYER:  God I have betrayed you many times, yet you continue to love me through Jesus. Thank you for never leaving nor forsaking me, though many times I have fallen. 

[jackrambles-blog]

The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”

John 10:31-32