He is Risen (Matt 28:6)

He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. - Matt 28:6

Each year on Easter, we celebrate the historical event of Jesus Christ's Resurrection.

It was a tangible event that happened in real time and space almost two thousand years ago.

But it is also an ongoing, ever-present reality.

Today that very same Resurrection Power of Jesus Christ dwells within every person who believes in Him.

But in most of us, most of the time, it lies dormant.

Why?

Because we seek Resurrection before we seek Crucifixion. We seek the Empty Tomb before we seek the Cross. We seek exaltation before we seek humility.

There would have been no life on Easter Sunday without death on Good Friday.

There is no shortcut to glory.

If we want to witness the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, we must start by putting to death our old self – the sinful nature.

We must see the world as crucified to us and ourselves as crucified to the world.

If we want to share in Christ's power, we must also share in His sufferings. If we want to share in Christ's glory, we must share in His humility. If we want to share in Christ's life, we must share in His death.

Jesus Christ does not ask us to climb to the top of the ladder of spirituality in our own strength. He wants us to let go of striving in our flesh and instead allow Him to lift us up.

Now, there certainly is a striving that is required, but this striving comes from a place of grace not towards it.

We are striving with His grace, not for His grace.

But we only have access to this grace through faith. And we only have access to faith when we take our eyes off ourselves and fix them on Jesus Christ.

Too many of us view God as a means to an end. We turn to Him when things get difficult, and then, when He fixes our problem, we go back to our normal lives.

God is not just a giver of gifts; He is the Gift itself.

Salvation is not something He gives; it is something He is.

There are over two billion people who proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord with their lips. But how many of them declare Him Lord with their lives?

These are the ones He is seeking.

And these are the ones to whom He will grant His Resurrection Power.

I want to know Christ

and the power of his resurrection

and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,

becoming like him in his death,

and so somehow to attain

to the resurrection from the dead.

Phil 3:10-11