It’s time for a resurrection.
Namely, yours.
You have focused on death long enough.
It’s time for another kind of reckoning.
Christians worldwide seem to have a fascination with death. Pass most any church and somewhere you’ll find a cross – a symbol of public execution and death. Listen to us talk about spiritual growth and overcoming sinful habits and somebody will mention the Bible principle of being dead to sin. Listen to our music or examine what there is of our art, and you hear descriptions of a life so surreal you have to, well, die to get there, or we celebrate the death that Jesus died to make it possible.
Lest I be misunderstood, all of that is true. But it’s only half the truth. [click to continue…]
I have a friend who used to say, every time somebody asked how he was, “It’s a good day to be dead.”
No, he was not a Klingon, or a descendent of Crazy Horse. He was actually referring to one of the most revolutionary truths in the Christian life. And truth be told, he wouldn’t just stop with the whole dead thing. He’d say, “It’s a good day to be dead, and alive in Christ.”
The truth to which he was referring is expressed most succinctly in Galatians 2:20. Here’s how the New Century Version translates it:
I was put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymore — it is Christ who lives in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to save me.
The implications of Paul’s simple declaration are profound. It tells me what I have received in order to live victoriously in this life, and to fulfill my purpose for which God created me and saved me.
I have received the life of Christ (“Christ lives in me”).
I have received Christ’s faith (“the faith of the Son of God” – a possible translation).
And I have received Christ’s self-giving love.
There is no situation, no bondage, no need for transformation, no frustration, no failure that the life, the love, and the faith of Jesus in me cannot respond to with power. And the same is true for you, assuming you have trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior.
So how, then, do we apply this truth? [click to continue…]
It’s time for a resurrection.