Why Most Christians Aren't Actually Ready for Easter

This Easter, are you preparing your invite list — or your heart? In this episode of Midweek Motivation, Jess and Caleb break down what it actually means to prepare for Easter, why most of us default to "get it done" mode, and how grounding yourself in the sacrifice of Jesus changes the way you invite, serve, and show up for your community.

Discover:

• What we're really preparing for when we prepare for Easter
• Why Easter isn't just the "church Super Bowl" — and how to treat it differently
• The connection between personal conviction and powerful invitations
• Caleb's daily morning routine for staying grounded in scripture and prayer
• How the Garden of Gethsemane reveals Jesus' model for handling pressure
• Why prayer is the single most important step you can take right now
• A practical discipleship tool (the Bless app) to help you live out the Great Commissiony

GET THE BLESS APP: https://app.blesseveryhome.com/

Reflection: Easter is an incredible opportunity — but opportunities without preparation are just events. Before you focus on who you're inviting, take the time to let the weight of the cross and the power of the resurrection settle into your own heart. When you're grounded in that sacrifice, everything else — your invitation, your courage, your conviction — flows from overflow, not obligation. Put your oxygen mask on first. Then go change some lives.

Key Takeaways:

• Preparation for Easter starts with your own heart before it moves to your invite list
• If you haven't processed the sacrifice yourself, you're missing the power behind the invitation
• People respond to conviction they can see in you — not just words
• Prayer is the force field that protects your mind and heart from distraction and spiritual warfare
• Easter is not optional enthusiasm — it's a requirement of stepping out in faith for the Great Commission
• A daily rhythm of scripture, reflection, and prayer keeps you grounded year-round, not just at Easter

Question for you to think about: When was the last time you sat with the sacrifice of Jesus long enough to actually feel it — not just know it?

Calls to Action: Subscribe so you never miss an episode, drop a comment sharing how you're preparing your heart for Easter this year, and share this with someone who needs to hear it before Easter Sunday. Download the Bless app (linked below) and start walking through the discipleship process with someone in your life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

The whole point of you inviting your friends is for them to get convicted of Jesus dying on the cross and right and raising again. And so if you don't even give yourself the time of day to actually process that and have gratitude and honor towards that, then you're missing the mark.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast, where we bring practical help for your faith and life. Here's today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hey guys, welcome to this week's Midweek Motivation. My name is Jess, and I am here with Caleb. And we're um in preparation for Easter. We're a couple of weeks away from Easter. And so um that's what we're talking, what we're talking about today. Preparing our hearts for Easter is a common thing that you'll hear people saying in this season. And so um I just wanted to dive into that with uh with you, Caleb, and um and bounce those ideas around so that we can maybe get into like clarity of what it actually means to prepare your heart, why we're doing it, all that stuff. So um so I'll present us with the first question that I think might be what people are thinking, and and that is um what are we preparing for actually when we're preparing for Easter?

SPEAKER_03 1:12

I think that when we're preparing for Easter, what are we preparing for? Is Easter in in church is is uh often thought of as like the church Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah. And so big celebration, the big day, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:28

It's the big day, it's the big celebration. I think one thing that we care about is not letting Easter be the Super Bowl and then just like, oh, okay, every other week's just a week. Yeah. That's really important, but but for Easter in particular, what I've noticed is people that go to the Super Bowl, not all of them or watch the Super Bowl, not all of them care about football.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Ah.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

And so it's it's interesting with Easter too, right? Is one thing that we are preparing our hearts for is a lot of spiritual warfare because the devil hates Easter. One thing that we're preparing our hearts for is more people. Is how can we retain the the life change that happens on Easter from all these people that come to know Jesus and deepen their faith in him. And so when when I see Easter, I think a big part of what we are preparing our hearts for is friction, is is life change. So there's almost this abundance mindset of like, oh dude, a ton, like thousands, I mean, across the world, millions, millions, millions, millions of people's lives will literally be changed. Some of them will be coming to know Jesus, some of them will have huge epiphanies or re-redicate their lives to Jesus, and uh, and a lot of people that only go to church on Christmas and Easter will be there. Yeah. And so I think uh um I like to think of Easter as a time where we get another chance to see if we can get them to be more dedicated to church, actually. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Because that's the recommitment piece of it, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Yeah, is it's like it matters when you're in community, and I've seen that effect on my life. And so when I see people that I haven't seen for a long time at Easter, my hope is that I'll see them more than Christmas and Easter. Yeah. Because I know that community will change their life. Yeah. And so I I think that we're preparing our hearts also for that intention that we have to have behind Easter to go. Jesus died on the cross for us, we need to have conviction behind that. So we're preparing our hearts as believers and and and Christians in in general, yeah. But also the intention behind the weekend of Easter at church being how can we retain the people that come? How can we have more people give their lives to Jesus? How are we preparing for a bigger, yeah, bigger harvest, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So the mission behind behind Easter being like the commission that Jesus gave us when he's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah, go make go make disciples.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah. So like so jumping way, way back, like the celebration of Easter in and of itself is that Jesus died on the cross, right? And that he rose again, rose again, like in this crazy, like if you didn't associate Jesus with God at all would be like an insane proposition, right? Yeah, right. But we as believers believe that Jesus died on the cross and that he was God and that he was our a sacrifice. So so um uh what I hear you saying, and I agree with this 100%, is first and foremost, we're preparing our own hearts. And when I think about like preparing our own hearts, I I immediately go to like communion and to um the fact that we've got to like humble ourselves and surrender and remember the cross and the sacrifice that Jesus made and all that kind of stuff. So, like, can you speak to that side of it, like our own personal preparation preparation? Yeah, like the the preparation is the word I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

I touched I touched on like having conviction over uh the death on the cross, and right, that's Good Friday. Yeah, the death on the cross, and then the resurrection is is Easter. A lot of people have heard it also referred to as Resurrection Sunday. Yep. And that's because Good Friday was the day he died and Sunday was the day he rose. Yeah and so I think that when you're preparing your heart for Easter, uh it can be easy to just be like, oh, there's gonna be a lot of people that come to church and I'm gonna invite all my friends.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

As an a a member or an attender, you're you're thinking, I gotta invite a lot of people, and that's true, that's true. Yes, absolutely. And I think you should be inviting friends. Absolutely. But um, you know, when you think of Easter, the whole point of you inviting your friends is for them to get convicted of Jesus dying on the cross and right and raising again. And so if you don't even give yourself the time of day to actually process that and have gratitude and and honor towards that, then you're missing the mark in your own, right? The log in your own eye, kind of thing, and a different analogy, but but uh yeah, I think it's super important for you to ground yourself in the amount of honor that you should have for the living word of God when you read through through like John and you read through Matthew and you and you actually read through the the sacrifice that was given for us for you to actually give yourself time to come to tears and to give yourself time to be like Jesus did that for me. Yeah. And so I think when you're praying preparing your heart, you know, at least for me, sometimes I do need to take a beat because a lot of time just want to boom boom-boom boom, yeah. Next thing, whatever, right? Yeah, yeah, and and it can be easy, especially as leader and leaders in the church, to go prep, prep. Yeah, we want this to be great, we want to steward what God has given us. Yeah, and that's true, but we especially everyone in the church needs to make sure that you first are preparing your heart and put your oxygen mask on first, right? And then go into into the rest.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, it's like uh the like I I agree with you. I get in like performance mode, like get it done, we've got a mission, let's like get all of the things done and make sure that we're we're doing it um as excellently as we possibly can. Um but the real power behind the invitation, the real power behind um what it is that we're asking people to join in is the actual sacrifice and resurrection. And if we don't have that um like really like in our lifeblood, I would I think then we're missing out on something like we don't actually have that power in the invitation. We are missing it. So I think that's it.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Yeah, that's like a hack and invitation is people will go more easily if they see conviction in you, if they see life change in you, if they see that you actually have a passion towards it. And I think the best way is to continually ground yourself in the sacrifice that was given to us that we often get lost in, or we get, you know, uh we get distracted and we almost forget what was the sacrifice that was given to us so that we can live the life that we live. Yeah. And so when you're grounded in that sacrifice, you will invite people better, you will bring people to church better, you will bring them to Christ better, and you will change their life better.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

So for sure. What do you do when you say um that you pause and take a beat to really take that in? What what do you do as somebody who's fast-paced and forward forward thinking, and you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 8:18

My my method to that is that morning time is sacred time. And so I'm up before Maria, my wife, right? Um, and that morning time is where I'm I make sure on a daily basis that I give myself 45 minutes to be silent. Yeah. And well, I I'm actually my time isn't silent because I like to put pure meditation from Apple Music on. Oh, because I like it makes my brain go like this.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Focus in.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Yeah, I like to I like that because it focuses my brain.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Um, but that's my time where I give myself the time to legitimately weep if I need to, or or raise my hands and stand up. No one, no one's there, right? Like it's just you and God. Yeah, I'll I'll be praying, just giving it to them because you know it's it's that time where I'm alone with God, and I and he encourages that often, right? He encourages being alone and and often is used like a the closet analogy is used a lot where it's like lock yourself away kind of and and have time alone. Yeah. Where you're able to be intimate, right? And intimate meaning. There's no it's between you two. And so that's the time that I do that is in the morning before anyone else wakes up, before I'm even getting ready. It's me, my coffee, and God. Yeah. And it's that's all it is where I'm able to where I'm able to be in scripture, and I'm able to ground myself in the word of in the living word of God, and I'm able to reflect on that scripture through journaling, and then I'm able to to pray now out of overflow that I've filled myself. And so that's every day I do that. And it gives me that time, not only near Easter, where I go, the pressure's on. Oh wait, I need to take a beat, but on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah, on it every day, yeah. That's cool. I love that. I I um I like to get with God in the morning too, and and to really read, and I've got to do it in a way that's like intentionally me and God with no ulterior motive on my end. Like, like I've got to separate my study time from my just be with God time. Yeah, yeah. I get that. Yeah, so that I can get get the relational side going for sure. Also, I think uh in preparation for Easter, I try and um and turn my heart towards specifically like the gospels, specifically like walking with with Jesus as he like prepared the disciples for him to not be here anymore, you know?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

And and at the beginning, it starts off really like exciting and full of joy, and towards the end, it really gets heavy. And and uh and yeah, I find myself crying a lot. Yep, it's yeah, or like watch the passion of the Christ. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Yeah, you'll that'll make you cry. For sure, for sure. You don't need to cry to love Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I'm just that's not a requirement.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

But it is, but it is definitely an outward expression of the change that you feel or the sacrifice you feel.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah. It's interesting that you said um at the very beginning that um you prepare for the stuff that's ahead, like the friction really. And when I was getting ready for this and and doing some some preparation and some study just for uh the this idea of preparing for Easter, right before Jesus goes to the cross, he is in the Garden of Gethsemane with his um disciples, and he's praying, like, take this comfort from me, but I want your will instead. And then I noted that he went to the disciples and they were asleep. And he's like, And in I forget which um gospel it is, but in the gospel it's it says specifically that they were heavy with grief and exhausted with grief, and so they fell asleep. And Jesus woke them up and he's like, pray so that you don't fall into temptation. And it was an interesting I uh a thing that I grabbed a hold of, and I don't I need to dive into it deeper, yeah, but um it's it's an interesting idea to grab hold of that Jesus says instead of falling into temptation because of grief and pain, they say he says grief specifically in the got in that gospel, but that he says to pray. And and I read that in that moment as prayer being the solution to falling into temptation because of the weight of what's coming ahead, right? And so I just thought that was interesting that Jesus knew what was coming and that's what he said to do in preparation. And so I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

I I think that's so important though, because I mean faith over fear, right? There's the whole idea of of pray without ceasing. Yeah. And the idea is I I say it almost every night when I'm praying before bed with Maria that God would put a a force field around all our house, you know, and that force field is angels. And so I always pray that He'd he'd cover a house in a force field of of angels. And I think that's how sometimes I th I visualize in my head prayer is like you're you're surrounding your body, your mind, the uh your temptation, your thoughts with a godly force field where the devil can't infiltrate because that's wicked, right? Temptation is is temptation itself is not a sin. We are naturally sinful people, but sin is also yes, but sin is also from the devil. And and temptation is also from the devil, right? And so you're able to cover your mind and your heart with that force field of angels, and that's when the devil can't infiltrate. And so I think that's I've always loved thinking of it that way when I, you know, when you do encounter something like temptation or a hard time or pressure or oh, there's something coming that I gotta perform for you gotta do this thing. And then you you often can get caught up in that thing, and then you forget to cover your mind and heart with the force field of Jesus and the force, the force field of angels that protects you from infiltration from the devil. And so having a daily ritual that helps that helps you go, my mind is literally protected by Jesus. Yeah. Uh especially in those times where you've got a lot going on and everything can distract you, and you're even maybe your morning time, you feel like your mind is racing, right? And and all that can really distract from going, no, I need a force field of prayer over myself in the in this time.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Yeah, that's so cool. I love that analogy. I like that that visual. Very cool. Um, so we uh we're talking about preparation for Easter, we're talking about like what we can do for ourselves. Why do you think the that preparation matters so much? Like what what impact does that preparation have? Um because Jesus rose again, right? And then he spent a good long, what was it, they said like 40 days proving that he was here, he gave them time to adjust to the new reality. And then he said, Okay, now it's your turn to go, right? And so I I feel like when we're talking about remembrance of the sacrifice of cross of Christ, and then we talk about the fact that he rose again and we know that he sent us on a mission. How does preparing for Easter, do you think, prepare us for that mission?

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Easter is one of the best current events of our life to possibly make disciples of all the nations. And so I think preparing for that is is simply a requirement of following the Great Commission, which is making disciples of all the nations. And so I don't necessarily see pre preparation for Easter as it's powerful, it's something that we can do, but I I in my mind I think it's a fundamentally different mindset of like, no, this is a requirement of my belief, this is a requirement of my stepping out in faith, is that stewardship over the Great Commission is required, that preparation is the pre that makes the Great Commission possible. And so without us thinking and preparing and and being right in our hearts and having the right heart posture, right? Uh God talks about in the Bible being sober-minded, right? Having the heart posture and and being blessed in that. And so it's simply a requirement of the Great Commission actually being fulfilled is going, I need to have my heart be ready, I need my my mind to be protected, I need my family to be safe, I need to be healthy, I need to be prepared in a literal tactical way for the things that are to come.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Um, I need to consistently, you know, pray without ceasing towards the devil because the devil's really, really excited uh about how much infiltration he'll have, but he's also insanely mad about the great things we're about to do, which hence why he's so excited to try and see how many lives he can ruin. Yeah. And so prep is literally just a requirement of stepping out in in faith and of I think also just seeing like Easter as a as an opportunity. Yeah. Um, because it is an opportunity to see more people come to Jesus, to see more people be in community.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I don't think that we really take that seriously always. Um, and I think that it's a lot easier to take that seriously when um when it's your day job, you know, when you're like in vocational ministry. But I think that that's uh I think that's a really solid and amazing call uh to people to get into action and to be ready and prepared for this Easter. So in in light of that call, what do you think that we should be doing for the next step?

SPEAKER_03 18:00

I think the most powerful thing you can do in preparation for Easter and preparation of celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, uh I would say is is I think it's prayer. I think the most powerful one thing you could do is step up your prayer life.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

I agree. Yeah. Uh just relationship and communication with with Jesus and being aligned with him and all that kind of stuff. And then everything else really kind of falls in into the place after that.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Matthew 6 33. Yeah. It's seek first the kingdom. Yeah. I think it's pray without ceasing would be my biggest encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

That's awesome. What do you think, like when you pray in in preparation for Easter, what are you praying for?

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Well, funny, I often am praying for the heart, uh the hearts of the team leads and the team members and the congregation to be prepared to be stirred.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

That's awesome. Cool. Yeah, and I think that uh well this is interesting because I wanted to talk about this and I feel like this is a net a natural uh segue into it, but we have we have this um new tool that we're using at West Side called the Bless App. And I think it's interesting that you say prayer is the the next best step because prayer happens to be the very first thing on the list of things that you can do. Um, and I've uh I what I'm thinking about right now is praying for um community, praying for the people that um aren't here yet is what we would say at Westside or that aren't connected in community who maybe don't even know Jesus yet, whatever their story might be. And I it pulls me back to like this moment in uh during COVID where there was all kinds of craziness happening in the community, people were kind of losing it because we had been in isolation for a long time and I heard a siren in my neighborhood. And um, my husband's a a safety guy, so he's got all the apps to know what's going on in the community. And there was a response to someone who was essentially like having a mental breakdown or crisis in their home, and it was uh uh you know, unsafe, essentially. And it automatically drew my mind to like pause and pray for them. Uh, because that stuff is happening in our community all the time, and our neighbors are struggling with things that maybe we don't even know about. And so um I love prayer as the next step, prayer for your team, a prayer prayer uh for yourself and your own like protection and readiness, prayer for your team and their readiness, and also prayer for your your neighbors and the people that you know that you want to be inviting, and also prayer for the wider community. Yeah. Yep. I love it. So on that note, um, I think that uh everybody should download the Bless App and get at it.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Do it. The Bless App's amazing tool. It's an amazing tool. Oh cool. It walks you through the whole process, honestly, of discipleship from start to finish. And so if you want to be part of the Great Commission, which God calls every believer to be a part of, then download the Bless App.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Because not all this is not even an affiliation, is the crazy part. Yeah. There's nothing we don't have anything to do with them. We love, I mean, we've seen them do their thing, they're amazing people behind it, but it's simply uh a framework in which you can go through the making disciples process over and over with everyone that you know that doesn't yet know Jesus. And so it's just a really powerful thing to go, well, I want to be a part of the Great Commission, I want to make disciples of all the nation. Yep. Uh, because I love Jesus and I'm convicted by him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

And I want other people to experience what I've experienced. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

And I want other people to experience that. So it's a it's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Cool. So uh so Caleb, you happen to be the person behind the scenes too. Can you link the bless up?

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Yes, it'll be in the description.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Sweet.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Awesome. Okay, well, uh we're talking about starting with prayer, right? So um, I don't know, do you want to pray real quick for our Are people getting ready?

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Yeah, absolutely. Did you just say thank you so much for this this time where we're able to be here doing a podcast and there's many, many people listening in right now. Uh we thank you for each and every one uh of these people that are on the other side of this screen or or that we're talking through their headphones right now. Uh we just pray over their lives. I pray that you bless them. I pray that um they would pray without ceasing these coming weeks and and then that it would become a habit that just does not stop. And so I pray that you'd protect them, that you'd guide them, I pray that you would give them courage and and give them a sense of uh being brave to invite their neighbors and their friends, and that they would ground themselves in in a conviction for you that is unwavering. I pray that they would see the sacrifice that you gave that we are about to s that we are about to celebrate and the resurrection of you that is undeniable, and that they would have a deep conviction that people can see that they would be a uh that they would be a a candle that just blazes fiery for you, God, and that people would see there's something different about them, and that people would see that I I I want that, and that they'd be able to say, It's Jesus. Come to me, come with me to Easter. And so I pray we'd we'd have courage and that we would have conviction and that we would pray without ceasing. And uh, God, we just pray over the families of everyone listening, and we thank you so much for them in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Uh Father God, thank you so much for opportunities for us to uh dive in and connect in community, even uh electronically over our podcast. Um Father, I just uh I pray for the efforts that um that our teams are um are uh investing in right now to prepare to receive just uh the floods of people that we know that you're gonna bring, Lord. I just pray for our communities. I pray for um courage and that you would just stir up in our people um the uh just passion for you and passion for um uh walking other people towards you, Lord. We we love you so much and we thank you so much for the gift that you've given us of um restoration and um and uh just the opportunity to connect and um thank you, Lord, and just offer all of this up to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Midweek Motivation. To make sure you don't miss any content in the future, please subscribe, share, and if you enjoyed this, give us a like and consider popping by a Westside service some weekend. You can find out more at Westside Community Church.com.