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A HOPE TRANSFUSION!
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Apr 11, 2009 6:22 pm
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by Charles R. Swindoll
Revelation 1:17-18
Easter and hope are synonymous. That special day never arrives without its refreshing reminder that there is life beyond this one. True life. Eternal life. Glorious life. Those who live on what we might call "the outskirts of hope" need a transfusion. Easter gives it.
I think of all those who are battling the dread disease of cancer. Talk about people living on "the outskirts." They fight the gallant battle, endure the horrible reactions of chemotherapy, and anxiously await the results of the next checkup.
And then there are those who still grieve over the loss of a mate, a child, a parent, or a friend. Death has come like a ruthless thief, snatching away a treasured presence, leaving only memories. What is missing?
Hope. Hope has died. There is nothing like Easter to bring hope back to life. Easter has its own anthems. Easter has its own Scriptures. And Easter has its own proclamation: "He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said" (Matthew 28:6).
When Christians gather in houses of worship and lift their voices in praise to the risen Redeemer, the demonic hosts of hell and their damnable prince of darkness are temporarily paralyzed.
When pastors stand and declare the unshakable, undeniable facts of Jesus's bodily resurrection and the assurance of ours as well, the empty message of skeptics and cynics is momentarily silenced.
Our illnesses don't seem nearly so final.
Our fears fade and lose their grip.
Our grief over those who have gone on is diminished.
Our desire to press on in spite of the obstacles is rejuvenated.
Our identity as Christians is strengthened as we stand in the lengthening shadows of saints down through the centuries, who have always answered back in antiphonal voice: "He is risen, indeed!"
A hope transfusion awaits us. It happens every year on Easter Sunday.
Alleluia! Jesus lives, and so shall we!
Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles R. Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.
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THE GREATEST POWER OF ALL!
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Apr 11, 2009 5:37 pm
1168 Views
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by Dr. John Barnett
When Jesus stepped from the Tomb on Resurrection morning, God unleashed the greatest power of all.
Often we fail to understand the magnitude of what really happened. Here is what had changed -- after the Resurrection Jesus was no longer limited to one location. Jesus could be at anytime with everyone in anyplace. Think of all of Christ's power we see in the Gospels available everywhere and all the time! That was God unleashing Jesus Christ to be everywhere available!
From the Manger to the Cross Jesus had been for 33 years in only one place at one time. He had humbled Himself, He had emptied Himself, and He had limited Himself. He was localized, operating in one place at a time.
Even in this condition of being localized, Jesus accomplished more than any human ever has or will. He grew up perfectly, mastered God's Word perfectly, and related to His family, friends, and neighbors perfectly for 30 years.
Then at the dawn of His Public ministry He obeyed God perfectly at His Baptism, He defeated Satan's advances perfectly in the Wilderness, and He began to serve God's will perfectly as He set out as an itinerant preacher.
For 3 ½ years Jesus awesomely served in the power of God.
• Wherever He went Christ's very Presence made sure that death fled, disease faded, and despair melted.
• Broken bodies that came in contact with Jesus were mended, ruined lives repaired, sightless eyes restored, empty ears filled with sound, missing fingers returned, and hungering lives satisfied.
• Everywhere He went, wherever He was, whenever He was there the Presence of Jesus meant - death, disease, and despair were no more. But Jesus only did that from being in one place at a time.
As far as we know Jesus only ventured outside the borders of tiny Israel but once, and then it was quite a brief stop in the north to help a troubled woman. Crowds came to Him, multitudes flocked to Him, and none were disappointed - He helped them all. But sometimes the crowds were so great that people were pressed out and had to resort to digging through rooftops, climbing trees, and reaching down through the feet of the crowds just to grab the tassel of His robe. All this because He was just One person who was limited to being in one place at a time.
Yet everything Jesus accomplished in one place at a time couldn't be all written down. It was amazing to see that which was captured for us in the Gospels. So much done so powerfully by One person, in one place at a time.
By now after having said it so many times, you have probably caught the drift of where we are going. As we step into the Garden that surrounded the borrowed Tomb on Resurrection morning - something has wondrously changed. Jesus is no longer trapped by time and space to be in one place at a time. He seems to be everywhere at once.
For the next forty days we find that Jesus crisscrosses the tiny land of Israel from north to south.
We find Him on mountaintops, back roads, inside locked rooms, on the shore, and everywhere else that He is looked for or needed.
He meets the grieving women at the Tomb, comforts the sorrowing Mary, calms the frightened disciples inside the locked room without opening the door, shows up at dawn on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, confronts and restores a soaking wet Peter, assures a doubtful trembling Thomas, visits with everyone of the 500 others who had believed on Him.
All that in an occupied country crawling with spies, soldiers, and religious leaders filled with hatred.
And for forty days after the Empty Tomb, He is never seen even once by any unloving eyes, He is never touched even once by unloving hands. Christ's Presence was available unstoppably - everywhere.
Now think again with me about Resurrection morning. The Empty Tomb meant something had changed. It was Christ's availability. For 3 ½ years anyone who could find Him could have any need met, any fear removed, and oppression lifted, any chain broken, any defilement cleansed away... if you could find Him.
Jesus solved all problems by His presence. Jesus came to people where they were and one by one transformed them. But Jesus was only in one place at one time.
But after the Cross and Empty Tomb, Jesus was available anywhere, anytime, by anyone. So - any sin could be forgiven, any doubts could be overcome, any sadness could be comforted, any disappointment could be stopped, any fearfulness could be arrested, any loneliness could be ended, any defilement could be cleansed...anywhere, anytime, and by anyone!
Just think what He can do now that He is available anywhere, anytime, and by anyone. Wherever you are Jesus is passing by right now. He is offering you salvation. Pause on Thomas.
"Thomas is our pattern. Thomas had not been present on that first occasion when Jesus appeared to his disciples. The others told Thomas about it afterward, but Thomas replied, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it" (John 20:25).
A week later Jesus appeared again, Thomas being present, and offered to fulfill the conditions of Thomas's test. But the mere sight was enough for Thomas. Thomas fell at Christ's feet and worshiped, saying, "My Lord and my God" (v. 2 .
Is that sight not clear enough for you also? Are Jesus' wounded hands not evidence enough for you of his love? God says that his action in Christ is perfectly clear, so much so that there is no excuse for a failure to believe it. In fact, he says that the way of salvation in Christ has been "made known" (Rom. 3:21). The way of salvation has been made as clear as a striking hand or a blow to the face.
Today it is the hand of a gracious God who holds out the way of salvation to you. If you reply that you cannot see it, he asks you to look at the hand itself; for it is a wounded hand, one bearing the print of the nail received by Jesus in dying for your salvation.
By faith you may put out your hand and touch that wound. You may know that it is evidence, irrefutable evidence, of God's great love for you. That hand was struck for you.
The one extending that hand died for you. Allow him to enclose your hand, to enclose you, and to bring you into that great company of those who possess eternal life and who shall never perish."
This devotional can be read or heard in its entirety by copying this URL into your browser bar: http://bigchurch.com=723
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DON'T FORGET THE RESURRECTION!
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Apr 11, 2009 5:34 pm
1225 Views
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by John MacArthur
In 1874, a Baptist minister named Robert Lowry penned one of the most stirring hymns to ever exalt the resurrection of Jesus Christ--"Low in the Grave He Lay." Notice how these verses contrast the impotence of death and suffering with the resurrection power of Christ:
Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior;
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!
Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!
Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!
Death, man's most dread enemy, is powerless to reign over the Lord of life. And that truth has significance for you and me, here and now in the twenty-first century. You can see it in the most exciting and rousing part of Lowry's hymn, the refrain that punctuates each stanza:
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o'er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!
Do you see in those lines what Jesus' resurrection means to you? If you are a Christian, you can rejoice in the fact that Christ rose from the dead as a victor, a champion who lives forever to reign, "with His saints." That refers to the promise based on our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ--it is our hope and the reason and ground of all we believe.
But what if there was no resurrection? What if the resurrection of Jesus Christ is just a first-century myth to be ignored or marginalized as a secondary issue? The implications of that approach are devastating to Christianity.
I want to draw your attention to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19 so that you can see what happens when you forget the resurrection.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
Without question, if Jesus is still in the grave, if He is perpetually the sufferer and never the Victor, then you and I are hopelessly lost. And though that is not the case, I want to focus on the hypothetical "what if" that Paul assumes temporarily in 1 Corinthians 15. "What if the resurrection were a myth? What if Jesus Christ were still dead and in the grave?"
First of all, you would still be in your sins, under the tyranny of death along with the most vile and unbelieving pagan. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then sin won the victory over Him and continues to be victorious over you too. If Jesus remained in the grave, then, when you die you would also stay dead. Furthermore, since "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), were you to remain dead, death and eternal punishment would be your future.
The purpose of trusting in Christ is for forgiveness of sins, because it is from sin that we need to be saved. "Christ died for our sins" and "was buried, and ... raised on the third day" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). If Christ was not raised, His death was in vain, your faith in Him would be pointless, and your sins would still be counted against you with no hope of spiritual life.
Second, if there is no resurrection, then "those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." That means every Old Testament saint, every New Testament saint, and every saint since Paul wrote would be suffering in torment at this very moment. That would include Paul himself, the rest of the apostles, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Moody, and the faithful and prayerful saints you've known--every other believer in every age also would be in hell. Their faith would have been in vain, their sins would not have been forgiven, and their destiny would be damnation.
In light of the other consequences, the last is rather obvious. "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." Without Christ's resurrection, and the salvation and blessings it brings, Christianity would be pointless and pitiable. Without the resurrection we would have no Savior, no forgiveness, no gospel, no meaningful faith, no life, and we could never have hope for any of those things.
To have hoped in Christ alone in this life would be to teach, preach, suffer, sacrifice, and work entirely for nothing. If Christ is still dead, then He not only has no ability to save you in the future, but He can't help you now either. If He were not alive, where would be your source of peace, joy, or satisfaction now? The Christian life would be a mockery, a charade, a tragic and cruel joke. Christians who suffer and even die for the faith would be just as blind and pathetic as those "believers" who followed Jim Jones and the People's Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, and Marshall Applewhite and the Heaven's Gate cult.
Since a Christian has no Savior but Christ, no Redeemer but Christ, and no Lord but Christ, if Christ is not raised, He is not alive, and our Christian life is lifeless. We would have nothing to justify our faith, our Bible study, our preaching or witnessing, our service for Him or our worship of Him, and nothing to justify our hope in this life or the next. We would deserve nothing but the compassion reserved for fools.
BUT, God did raise "Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification" (Romans 4:24-25). Because Christ lives, we too shall live (John 14:19). "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins" (Acts 5:30-31).
We are NOT to be pitied, for Paul immediately ends the dreadful "what if" section by saying, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). As Paul said at the end of his life, "I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him [i.e. his life] until that day" (2 Timothy 1:12).
Those who do not hope in Christ alone for salvation are the real fools; they are the ones who need to hear your compassionate testimony about the triumph of Christ's resurrection. So don't forget the resurrection; rejoice in it and glory in it, for He is risen indeed.
© Copyright 2004 by Grace to You. All rights reserved.
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