PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Luke 24:1-12
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:1-12)
Death has been such a fixture in life we assume it is natural.
When death happens, we assume that hope is gone – because life is gone.
We were made for life, yet we live as if we were made to die.
Life is more than biological life, it is fullness of life in every way.
Love, joy, peace, these are qualities of LIFE to the full.
This is what we are all looking for, but we’re looking in the wrong places.
The disciples were looking for a dead Jesus, after all death is final.
Jesus shows us it is not, and that LIFE unleashed from death is possible.
Jesus has broken the death barrier and opened up the possibility of full LIFE.
So many people are trying to ‘live’ as much as they can before they die.
How would we live if death was not final, if this life were only the beginning?
Jesus makes possible a whole new way to live, a life that lives beyond death.
This kind of life begins now, in how we relate to God, others, and even death.
Is fear of death keeping you from fully living – with love, joy and peace?
PRAYER
Lord, Satan uses death to scare us and get us off balance. Help us to see beyond death to the wonder of eternal life with you. Help us to start living this way now already!
Good news – but for many it’s nothing. To many it’s like it was like the testimony of the first witnesses of the empty tomb: “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense”. How did I come to believe that this was not nonsense – but actually words of life and resurrection – the Good News? In reading the accounts in the Bible, in reading the events – the drama of history from Adam and Eve and the fall into sin and with the promise of a Messiah to come to rescue us – how through Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David and the prophets and then the eye witness accounts of the gospel writers – I came to believe the story that Jesus is the Messiah and that he conquered death. The story became real to me and I believe it and I am affirmed by the gift of the spirit in me – that works in me to live for Jesus. Yes this is the good news – and it’s not nonsense!
He lives.
My Jesus is alive.
What a miracle! He told His followers and they believed when they experienced His presence. I need to believe His Word – trust and obey. Living for Jesus is a daily affair. Today and all of our tomorrows. My serving Him is now and forevermore. Those who believe live twice but die once. What a marvel. What a life we have in Christ Jesus.
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own. [Refrain]