John 11:25-26Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. NIV
This day is the core of Grateful Living.
That Jesus would
choose to humble Himself in the form of a man, knowing the best and worst of our
humanity, and then willingly offer up Himself as the one and only Sacrifice for
us is staggering. He Who knew no sin became sin on my behalf, and demonstrated
love of the highest degree through His death on the cross.
And had the story
ended there, I would forever be in His debt.
But today? Today is what allows me
to actively live a life of grateful living, because this same Jesus, fully God
and fully man, defeated death so that I could have eternal life. As Leonard
Ravenhill stated:
“Calvary expresses the love of God. The resurrection explains the power of God”.
This is the crux of
our faith; not that He died, but that He arose. Timothy Keller puts it this
way:
If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that He said; if He didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what He said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like His teaching but whether or not He rose from the dead”.
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| Photo credit: www.turnbacktogod.com |
And so today we rejoice! He has risen from the dead and sits
at the right hand of the Father, living to make intercession on our behalf.
Death is defeated, and we are free to walk in the power of His resurrected
life. And that’s some powerful incentive to live gratefully.
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| Photo credit: www.thedeliverancedoctor.com |
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You can learn more about Christie Murrow on her blog, Charis Designs Jewelry