Power Of The Resurrection

Many people, including Christians, view the Resurrection only as a great historical event. They pause once a year to reverently remember the death and resurrection of Christ. However, the resurrection is also a force, a power that belongs only to God. The death and resurrection of Jesus was much more than just something that happened one time. It was an historic demonstration of God’s attitude and power.

When we come to a place where we die to our own dreams and preferences and possessions and agendas – when we let it all fall into the ground and just pass away and be covered over with dirt – the very same power that raised Jesus from the dead comes into the story. In the pattern of our Lord, we cannot taste the power of the Resurrection without first going the way of the cross. It seems that the cross never kills the ignored or tolerated parts of our life. It always seems to demand life’s most cherished dimensions and details.

When we read the story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, we often miss the fact that Abraham is the one who died that day. The father who walked back down the mountain was a different Abraham than the one who ascended it. His personal ideas and affections as a father had to die, to be poured out, so that the infinitely larger purpose of God could flow into his heart. Because Abraham died to himself, God could trust him to carry the seed that would bless the whole earth for all time.

God exchanged Abraham’s old life – very provincial, personal and limited – with the unlimited and panoramic sweep of the Lord’s generosity for the whole earth. Abraham became one of the largest figures in world history because he released his cherished and only son Isaac into the hand of God. A seed is one of the most mysterious things in all of God’s creation. When you hold a grain of wheat in your hand, you are holding much more than a seed; you hold future fields and generations of wheat.

The seed in your hand may belong to you. Yes, you can eat it. But, if you drop it into the ground and walk away, by its own death it takes on a brand new and limitless life. It can literally feed millions. Jesus’ friends and disciples could not understand the cross. How would it even be possible that their Friend, the youthful and very vibrant Jesus, could just, you know, die? And, besides, He was just a magnificent man, such a continual fountain of blessing and health and provision for them and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others.

Such wonderful blessings are supposed to continue. A “God-who-is-good-all-the-time‚” just had to know that they really needed the One whom He gave. Surely, He would remain with them every day of their lives. But, the largeness of God knew that the personal and very local relationships with Jesus would have to be cashed in for the grand eternal purpose. What about the gifts that God has deposited in you? Were they given for your own life? For your own family? Did God give them so that you could control and dispense them according to your vision and agenda? Or, does He have a harvest in mind?

God created us, and as such, he has a responsibility to provide for us... which he did by sending his son to die a brutal death because only he was spotless/Sinless enough of a sacrifice to satisfy the demands of forgiveness which are very strict because where God is, no sin can be- thankfully God provided a way for everyone who chooses to avoid the penalties of our sins!

Thankfully as well, God knew before the foundating of the earth that those that choose him are imperfect sinners who would always mess up, yet through the cleasning blood of Christ, we can have a spotless/sinless relationship with a spotless sinless God for eternity.if it were not for the sacrifice of Christ, it would not be possible for us to enter into the sinless presence of God.

Praise be to God for providing such a powerful and loving sacrifice for those of us who were at one time God’s enemies because we were born into sin, all because we threw away our right to dwell with God on earth in a sinless state. Lust got the better of us, and we chose to beleive the lie instead of the truth.

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