Tag: Christianity

Posted in Faith

Resurrection and why Christ had to rise

Posted on by gracielynn

Happy Resurrection Sunday, friends!

One of my favorite passages regarding the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is in Luke 24. Multiple women from Galilee (namely Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, James’ mother, and other women) had prepared spices and ointments for his dead body. Since the Jews didn’t practice embalming, they were going to use these items to preserve the body and assist with body decomposition odors.

However, approaching the tomb, the stone had been rolled away, and inside, they found nothing but empty linen.

Where was Jesus?

Their shock was evident, as Scripture says, they were perplexed. No doubt, they were asking where He could have gone. Where was His body? Who rolled the stone away? How could this happen?

God, in His rich mercy, sent two angels to comfort the women with an explanation.

Standing beside them, they were asked

Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the sinful hands of men and be crucified, and on the third day rise.”

These believers had the reasoning for Jesus’s resurrection from the messengers. Jesus’s missing body was evidence that He had truly risen. He couldn’t have opened the sealed tomb from the inside. Especially when He was dead! We know He gave up His spirit (Matthew 27:50) while He was on the cross, and His death was confirmed by the centurion standing nearby, after an earthquake, before He was placed in the Tomb.

Fulfilling prophecy, the soldiers did not break His legs (John 19:28-42), as He was already dead when they approached Him. Also, His body had to be proven to be dead before it was released by Pilate to Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:33-47). The only conclusion was that Jesus’s body was gone! And the angels said He had risen! This was truly a miracle!

Further into the passage, starting at verse 13, we see two unnamed disciples walking and discussing all that had happened. During their commute to Emmaus, in the middle of their conversation, the risen Jesus appeared among them, but was not recognizable to them. He just seemed to be another person interested in what they were talking about. Cleopas couldn’t believe that someone could be unaware of all that had happened, yet Jesus inquired anyway, and the two men explained their disbelief TO JESUS that He was dead.

“…we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Jesus rebuked them and reminded them of what Jesus had told them. And then beginning with Moses, He interpreted all of the Scriptures. Luke 24:31 states that after Jesus took the bread, blessed it, and broke it, giving it to them, their eyes were opened and they finally were able to recognize Him! Can you imagine!?

These passages have always stirred something inside of me. As a believer who is reading and trusting these details from over 2000 years ago, I always get excited about imagining their realization. Looking into His face and seeing that He is, in fact, alive again…would I even be able to comprehend that? It had to be mind-blowing! I know the heartache of losing many loved ones. Death seems to have won, and we feel defeated. It can be debilitating.

Friends, it’s been a while since I’ve written on here, and in the time since, both of my parents, as well as my mother-in-law, have been ushered into the presence of our Risen Lord and Savior. Death and physical separation create a justified anger in me. I hate death! I know we aren’t meant to live here forever, but it’s painful to lose those we love and spend time with, have many shared memories and experiences with. I know the goal is to know and believe in Jesus this side of Heaven, and share the truth of the gospel here during the years God allows us to live. But the ache…How my heart sings just thinking about our future Reunion in Heaven!

Dear ones, if Jesus hadn’t gone to the cross and fulfilled the salvation plan that God had designed, we wouldn’t have hope FOR ANYTHING. If Jesus didn’t die and rise to life again, all would be lost. Dead bodies decay and return to dust.

But the resurrection of Jesus Christ proves many things for Christians:

  • The Lord God had this exact plan in mind from the beginning. The devastation of Eve and Adam’s decision cost all of humanity perfect union with the Lord. Consequences resulted, a curse was placed, and a prophecy foretold. Death became a realization. But God didn’t let it stay that way. He already knew WHEN and HOW He would redeem people back to Himself. Jesus could die for our sins, sure, but still needed to satisfy the penalty for sin. And by rising to life, Jesus proved that death no longer has a grip on us.
  • Human bodies don’t last. Breath will be taken from our lungs, and we will not live forever in these physical states. Scripture promises that for believers, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). When we die, we will be with Him immediately.
  • When Christ died, He suffered for ALL of our sins so that He could be the bridge back to the Lord for us (1 Peter 3:18). Hebrews 9:26 declares that Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Also, Hebrews 9:12 states that Christ “entered once for all into the holy places…by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption”. Our sins cost us our relationship with God, but Jesus did all that was necessary by taking our sin on Himself and dying, so that our sin would die with Him, and thus impute the perfection of Christ to His believers. No longer are we on the hook for our sins; they are dead and forgiven by our Almighty God. Jesus was our substitute. The perfect sacrificial lamb. Because His blood was shed, we are covered by His grace and can be free to live in grace and peace with God, being sanctified daily. And by rising to life, we can live new lives this side of Heaven and usher in Christ’s Kingdom on earth. We have purpose and a justified HOPE!

“…walk in the newness of life.”

Romans 6:4 explains that believers are baptized into Christ’s death, and therefore, we can live new lives. Not just behavior modified lives, but lives following Christ’s righteousness, and no longer our own way. God puts in us a heart of flesh that can be molded by Him and moved to live rich, full lives of love and service for others.

A transformation from sin to grace. Death to life.

All because of Christ and His death and resurrection. None of this is deserved, but it is given freely by God to us.

Jesus’s followers were given a great gift that Sunday! As they realized His sacrifice didn’t end in death, they were filled with hope and amazement! Just like His followers, we too have eternal hope! We can know with certainty that He was raised to life again. He was seen by over 500 people in the 40 days from His resurrection until He returned to the right hand of God. And those people shared all that they had seen with others, at great cost. His disciples died horrendous and excruciating deaths proclaiming that He had resurrected from death, despite what religious leaders and political leaders told them to believe. They had truly seen Him alive after death! Without the resurrection, Jesus would be just another man who died.

Not too long ago, the Lord revealed something important to me. About two months ago, on one of my hardest days of grief, I was sitting in my sunroom and just sobbing. I let the pain overtake me and gave in to the tears and memories. I was missing my mom incredibly (it had only been four months since her unexpected passing), and I was still processing what I had lost. I’ve progressed in my grief journey since, but that day was extremely heavy. After wiping wet eyes, I spotted my Nana’s (my maternal grandmother’s) Bible on a nearby shelf, and I reached and opened the cover. In front of her Bible, she has written:

Resurrection and why Christ had to rise caught my eye. I quickly went to the passage in 1 Corinthians 15.

I read all 58 verses out loud. And I just sat stunned.

Full.

Tears of sadness turned to tears of joy and happiness.

I felt such peace and just sat in it for a bit.

Her notes and insights were visible and preserved in her handwriting.

I continued sobbing as the Holy Spirit helped me to realize the depth of Christ’s resurrection and what it meant for me, for my parents, for other loved ones, for believers who take Scripture at its word. God tells us why He does everything!

In this passage, Paul is writing to the Corinthian church about Christ’s resurrection. In the preceding chapters, he laid out what love is and WHO love is. He continues with instructions for believers and then gives a tight defense for Christ’s resurrection and what it means for us. He readdresses what the Gospel is and questions why some are saying that life after death is impossible. I encourage you to read it yourselves. Read the entire chapter. And be filled with the Truth of life after death. Jesus made it all possible for us as well. We will no longer just die, but we can be made alive here, and when we do take our last breath here, we will be alive forever because of what He did for us!

That is true love, folks. Jesus laid down His life and rose again, so we could live. Forever with HIM!

Don’t let this become just another Sunday to you. Because of Christ, FUTURE VICTORY IS SURE! Be strong and steady, always abounding in the Lord’s work, for you know that NOTHING YOU DO FOR THE LORD IS EVER WASTED!

1 Corinthians 15:58.

Be rooted in Christ, in the Scriptures, in His death and resurrection! If you are unsure how, reach out. I’d love to tell you about my Savior!

I pray this Resurrection Sunday that you would know that Jesus died for your sins. You are not doomed to live meaningless lives. Because of what Christ did on the cross, He fulfilled everything necessary to save us from the curse. He is our Risen Savior! He conquered death so we could live! You can have hope, and you can have a fresh start! You are loved so much that God sent His ONE and ONLY SON to die for you, so that you could have eternal life!

Posted in Faith

Committed

Posted on by gracielynn

I recently heard a Christian song on the radio that mentioned how God is committed to changing us to be more like Him.  Wait…reread that statement.  “God is committed…”  Did you see it too?  Yeah, the word COMMITTED stood out.  I tilted my head (as I often do when a very interesting thought captures my attention) and then I turned down the radio and started to talk with God about it.  I continued driving down the freeway, and I reviewed what the word commitment means.

Commitment is a term that shows loyalty.  Whoa…God is committed??  To us?  To me?  When do we ever think of God like that?  We tend to view our commitment as believers through attending church, loving others, reading our Bibles, and spending time in prayer with God.  I don’t believe I’ve ever considered how committed God is to me.  I’m sure it’s inferred in the life of a Christian, and yet expounding on the idea was intriguing to me.

Being committed means to be “wholeheartedly dedicated”.   It also entails being determined to see an end result.  Does that mean that God never gives up on us?  Sounds like it.  Let’s research this grand idea even further.

Godly marriages are the best example of people who are in committed relationships.  I say godly marriages because many people can get married today, and yet, God came up with the idea of marriage, and He designed the institution to represent the complete picture of a union acceptable to Himself.  I’m not inviting a debate on the tolerance of America’s idea of marriage.  I’m simply going by the truth of Scripture.  We’ve obviously seen in today’s society a lot of marriages fall apart that didn’t have God at the core of their union.  In a marriage where God is reigning along with the husband and the wife, there is a picture of leadership and submission, trust, love, and true completeness.  The husband and wife devote themselves to each other and are wholeheartedly dedicated.  Of course, there are temptations and Satan desires to destroy these unions, but because God is at the center, all of his advances are thwarted.  These are the marriages that represent what God designed.

Without getting off on a tangent (stick with me), I believe the true intimacy and devotion that marriage affords is a gift from God and the best marriages are those in which both parties of the covenant understand and agree to work at their union together with God’s help.  They realize they cannot complete the faithfulness factor apart from God.  Commitment realizes that errors are made, but forgiveness reigns.  Forgiveness…ah, there’s one of those church words.  What does that mean?  True forgiveness is dismissing a wrong for the sake of healing and letting the Holy Spirit work in our lives to restore relationships; first with God (Mark 11:25) and with each other (Matthew 18:15-20) .  It doesn’t mean the error is completely forgotten.  It means it is dismissed for the sake of letting God restore and letting healing take place.  Over time, the error is simply forgotten about, and love replaces the anger.  If you struggle with forgiveness, you are not alone.  But may I suggest a relationship with the God of the universe?  He is the ONLY ONE who can work out the act of forgiveness in all of our lives.  Don’t believe me?  Try to do it without Him.  Yeah, He’s a very vital piece.

Anyway, back to my original thoughts on commitment: God in His perfection is committed to changing us to be more like Him.  Let’s think about that.  Didn’t He create us and allow sin to enter the world?  How is it our fault that we’re broken then?  Let me share with you my understanding.

God, in His great and infinite wisdom, and righteous and justified love, chose to redeem us from our fallen nature and He designed the timeline for that to happen (i.e. By sending Jesus at just the right time in history with King Herod Antipas as king over Judea, by choosing the time period for Jesus when crucifixion was the method of torture and death in the Roman world, and by deciding to allow humanity to either accept or reject the truth of Jesus’s death and resurrection).

But why is He determined to change us?  We’re all good people, right?  We take care of each other, laugh and have fun with friends, go to work or school, obey our bosses and parents, serve on teams and committees, etc.  I’m sure a few of us have helped a few old ladies across the street.  So, why are we in need of being changed? 

The answer is simply because of our fallen nature.  We are full of sin.  We cannot escape it.  It is a part of our heritage and is passed down from parent to child without an option to choose otherwise.  See Romans 5:12-13 and 5:18 for clarification on the Adam/Jesus parallel.  Through one man (ADAM), sin is carried through the bloodlines of each person until death.  It’s part of our curse.  And just the same, through one man (JESUS), salvation became available to all who hear and accept the word of God (in the work of Jesus on the cross).  Condemnation becomes redemption…amazing!

I understand the fall, the curse, and how Jesus’ death and resurrection has saved all believers.  But the more I read Scripture, I become aware of the thoughts of those who don’t want to be changed by God.  Believe it or not, some humans don’t want God to be committed to them.

“But that’s insane,” a fellow imaginary believer cries out, “we need His intervention in our lives.”

And believe me, I’m with you in that thought process.

The reason these people don’t want His commitment is that commitment always requires WORK.  The people who wish to overlook their fallen state look at their monetarily successful lives and see nothing wrong.  They are happy and allegedly content with the things they’ve bought, the hours they put in at their children’s schools to look good, their comments at business meetings and church gatherings, and all the charity work they do because they want to be seen as leaders in their community, and they honestly see nothing wrong with how they’re living.

Second Corinthians 4:4 talks about how the minds of unbelievers have been blinded so they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ.  From that perspective, why shouldn’t God want to change them?

The truth is that whether we are living for ourselves or living for Him, our lives mirror what we worship.  We do this daily, sometimes completely unaware.  Every day, your behavior tells a story.  And the truth of the matter is that God wants to be included and to be part of your decisions and solutions.  To say that you don’t want to be changed because your life is going along swimmingly the way you’re running it is to say that God is irrelevant and unnecessary.  You may think you don’t need God because you’re doing just fine, but that is a very deadly mindset, my friend.

And even as I write this, I will admit my struggle with changing in some areas. I am a beloved daughter of God, freely accepting the grace being offered to me, and yet I still act like a child whose favorite toy was taken away.  This is completely unacceptable behavior.  Could my life truly be an example of a life in need of His grace?  I would say so.

I accept my fallen state and that my heart is dark even as I continue to grow in the Spirit.  I am coming into the light.  There is a part of me that is very aware that I will struggle with sin every day of my life. But the one thing that allows me to turn from all the pain, anger, bitterness, and heartache is the truth that my Lord and Savior invites me to accept the fact that He is COMMITTED to restoring me.

He knows my desire to change, He knows my heartache, He knows my sin, and still wants me to walk in the grace and truth I accepted from Him. He is telling me that it is a process, not an overnight ordeal, and that He is willing to take as long as necessary to change me from within.

The beauty, though, is that I’m not working to achieve salvation.  I received that gift years ago and am reassured in Scripture that nothing can separate me from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39) and no one can ever take me from His hand (John 10:28).  Though I will always deal with sin, I am not alone.  The Holy Spirit resides inside of me, and He will continue to work through me, but my eternal life started the moment I accepted the free gift of forgiveness and grace from God, believing the Gospel truth that He paid my debt. 

The life of a Christian is a journey.  Many of us call it a “walk” because every day is another step toward furthering His Kingdom.  Every person on earth is seeking answers and determining their place in this world-that goes without saying.

But to know that the Creator of the world wants to intimately know you better and that He is committed to changing you from the inside out should not scare you, but give you the love you wish.  You are His child whom He loves and whom He wants to make into what you were meant to be!  Apart from Him, we’ll never be acceptable to God.  The sad truth is that if you do desire to be alone and to do things on your own, He will respect your wishes.  Please don’t turn from Him.  You are empty because you are supposed to be.  Only God can complete what He originally started.  Without Him, you will always feel that void.

My prayer is that you will not be a commitment phobe, but that you will take a step of faith and understand that your life is precious to God.  You may already be on the path to changing other people’s lives for His glory, but you still feel empty.  Accept that He does love you the way you are, but wants to make you even more.  Will you let God be committed to you?

I can’t think of another way to thank Him for what He did for me at the cross than to let Him be committed to restoring me, and for me to fully give myself back to Him.