Resurrection Day

 

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’” — Matthew 16:24-25 reveals that death makes us alive. While that may sound like an extreme contradiction, this form of death is death of ego, referred to in Scripture as dying to ourselves. In 1 Corinthians 15:29-31 Paul shares his daily act of surrender — “Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” What are we supposed to die to daily?

We are supposed to die to our selfish desires every day. Galatians 5:17-19 reveals what the “works” of our sinful flesh are – “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

 

How common is infidelity in society today? An individual’s “body count” can make or break them in this generation. Men tend to celebrate their count, while women are condemned for their number of partners. Even more prevalent is the amount of cheating in relationships. Sadly, the concept of love has been perverted and is thrown around so loosely that the idea of a committed, healthy relationship is intimidating. Whenever there is a storm, it is a hurricane and they lack guidance to ride it out or brave it. This generation chases fleeting relationships that last as long as the wind blows. No one ever mentions that true love is “long-suffering” and faithful as much as it is patient, and kind. Being steadfast seems to become more and more of a challenge as the years pass by. Many do not even realize that looking at pornography is adultery. In Matthew 5:27-28 Jesus reveals – “’You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’” Guard your heart in your relationships, and be careful what you behold for your eyes are windows to your soul.

 

Jesus warns in Matthew 26:41 — “’Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”  Our flesh indeed is weak. We crave prodigal, worldly, and wicked things. We waste time and resources, and the value of what truly matters is lost to us as we give into the desires of the flesh and “follow our hearts.”  Thus, the Lord says in Jeremiah 17:9-10 – “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” Jesus is the ruler of peace in our hearts, and when we accept the GIFT of salvation He comes in and corrals the chaos and destroys our corrupt ways through our surrender. Therefore abide in James 4:7-10 – “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”  

 

Through our submission to Jesus Christ, we fight back with our spirit against our flesh and through fasting we can put our flesh into submission by denying what it desires. This is a process of sanctification, a continuous journey of “pruning” and new growth. In John 15:1-4 Jesus teaches — “ ‘I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine neither can you, unless you abide in Me.’”

 

During this process it can be painful to be pruned but it is necessary for our good. When we surrender our old ways and live for Jesus, our life is no longer our own. In April 2009, I died in two ways. The first way was physical although I was revived, and the second way was the most important, I was reborn as a Christian. This death made me alive, before I found Jesus I was dead inside. I became dead to sin but alive to God.

 

Romans 6:1-4 defines the meaning of new life — “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

 

Death makes us alive. My heart stopped while I was being life-flighted from one hospital to another during a battle with a “freak” brain infection. The only thing I remember was falling into darkness, endlessly. There was no “light at the end of the tunnel” and there were no golden gates of heaven. My spirit cried out “Abba Father!” as I fell. There was no audible voice, there was no conscious thought. There was only a spark in my spirit, a spark of hope. I believe in Romans 8:15 — “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” My earthly father cried out to our Father in heaven, he rebuked the doctor’s diagnosis (a 15% chance of survival). It was by His unwavering faith in Jesus Christ that I was healed and fought to live out my second chance at life. I should be dead today, but it is by the Grace of God I am still breathing.

 

After I went into cardiac arrest, I was medically induced into a coma in case I woke up after being revived. During this coma the sedatives keeping me under had to be increased because I fought through them. Before I was awakened on the seventh day, I was on four different sedatives. When I woke up I was so eager for this new life that I ripped my own feeding tube out. I was so eager to walk again I threw myself from the bed to the floor and crawled until I found the strength to stand. It was the quickest recovery  on the ICU floor the nurses said they have ever seen (within 2 weeks I was moved from intensive care).

 

When I first woke up my mind was empty of everything, how to count, how to breathe, who I was, who anyone was, etc. In two weeks, I regained it all. I struggled and faced many obstacles for the two years that followed. To this day there are residual symptoms that I learn new ways to overcome. It can be a daily battle, brain surgery can change everything but your heart and soul. I know that my victory is found in Jesus! I live this out every day of the new life He has blessed me with. Everything I have experienced since the day of my salvation, God has used both good and bad for His Glory.

 

I am a new creation as told in 2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.” My daughter Luna is obsessed with any song relating to sanctification, the old man dying and the new man living. “Dead Man” by Jars of Clay is a song with lyrics sharing the perspective of someone acknowledging they are “dead” and wanting a change in their life. The only one that can bring the dead to life is Jesus Christ. On a Thursday (Not Good Friday) the Son of God was crucified on a wooden cross. He was buried and He rose again on the third day. This was also significant because many scholars believe He rose just before sunrise on a Sunday, signifying the Son of Man rising before the sun.

 

Matthew 12:38-40 is evidence of the time frame – “But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” His body was placed in a tomb with a stone barricading the entrance to keep his followers out. The Romans did this to ensure no one could “fake” a miracle and steal the body when the prophecy was made known to them. He died for our sins!

 

He may have born for the Jews, but the Gentile was grafted in when they rejected His teachings, it was the Jews that condemned Him to die on the cross. Pontius Pilate did not view Jesus as a guilty man, he even questioned the verdict in Matthew 27:23-24 – “Then the governor said, ‘Why, what evil has He done?’ But they cried out all the more, saying, ‘Let Him be crucified!’ When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult  was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude saying , ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.’”

 

Jesus was the sacrificial lamb to the altar, and He died for you and me. He was blameless even having been sent in the likeness of sinful flesh as man. – (Romans 8:3). He was even tempted by Satan after fasting for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. Matthew 4:1-4 reveals some ways the devil tempted Jesus in the desert – “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But He answered and said, ‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Our daily bread is Scripture and it keeps us spiritually fed. Job 23:12 is an example of this obedience – “I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” God’s Word is more valuable than any gold and silver.

 

The Word became flesh as told in John 1:14 – “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus overcame the world and the lusts of the flesh, and is our example to live by (disciple).  We are still in our flesh and sinful human nature, but we are now dead to it, we have the ability and authority to stand against temptation just like Jesus did as He was both fully man and fully God. This is proclaimed in Philippians 2:5-11 – “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being  in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted  Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

Prophecy reveals in Scripture that Immanuel (God with us) would be born in a manger covered with swaddling  clothes similar to a burial shroud. The three wise men (Magi) that visited Jesus at the age of two, brought gifts that were a foretelling of His life and death. Gold signifies kingship, frankincense represents the divinity of Jesus (worship), and the myrrh is symbolic of death because it is an embalming oil. Jesus had to die for us to be saved! In Matthew 27:51-54 the veil was torn that separated us from communication and fellowship with Father God – “Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’”

 

Jesus is King! He wore a crown of thorns which symbolizes sin (although it was given to Him to mock Him), because prior to the fall of man in Genesis there were no thorns on roses. But when He rose again, He traded that crown of thorns for the crown of a King. The one TRUE King of All kings, Jesus Christ! On the third day He rose from the grave, the stone rolled away from the tomb. On Resurrection Sunday (Easter) we celebrate the promise of life everlasting, and unfailing love! We celebrate the resurrection power that dwells within us now because of the Holy Spirit! The bunny has nothing on the rolling stone!  The bunny does represent fertility from pagan traditions, but the egg represents rebirth/resurrection in other cultures as well. The elements of this holiday can be used to honor Jesus!

 

This resurrection power is the dunamis power from Christ in us that grants us the ability to do as Jesus commanded to His twelve disciples in Matthew 10:5-10 – “These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: ‘Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.’”

 

If we are spirit-filled believers we are also called to be disciples and make disciples. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide our every need as we walk out our salvation and walk through the refining/purifying fire. Walk with newness of life!

 

 

Happy Resurrection Day!