Resurrection

So I have a new show. Resurrection on ABC caught my attention because it's a lot like Alcatraz that only ran for part of 1 season. In the show, these people, who were thought to be dead, actually reappear, some from 32 years ago. BUT they're the same age as they were when they died. It's like time has stood still for them, and they don't remember anything about where they've been for the missing years. It's quite captivating and intriguing because it's something we just don't see in every day life. The resurrection from the dead of our loved ones would be awesome to say the least!

However, I was thinking. Resurrections do and HAVE happened in everyday life. Recently, I heard about a man in Mississippi that woke up in a morgue in a body bag. He had been pronounced dead, and when the mortician went in to start the embalming process, the man was moving his legs inside the body bag. Imagine that...he got to leave the funeral home out the front door!

Stories like these are numerous, and it often brings questions about how often this happens. In fact, it has happened more often than not, but yet, we fail to believe. Jesus brought Lazarus back from the grave after three days! Jesus also raised a girl from the dead after her father just simply asked! But the greatest of all resurrections was when Jesus rose from the grave. He defeated death, erased the curse of sin from humanity, and made it so we could now approach the Father in the throne room.

So why is that we live in doubt? We live in fear? We live in hiding like that veil in the temple still separates us from the holy of holies? We don't walk in confidence knowing that God's Son became the ultimate sacrifice. Instead we settle for a life of trying to appease God and still make sacrifices that He doesn't need or want! We're rather sacrifice the blood of a Lamb, in today's terms, working ourself to the bone trying to appease some thought-up angry God, than allow Him to change our hearts and live in victory and freedom.

We have indeed seen resurrections. And we still see them today. God is the same miracle-working God that He was over 2000 years ago. He hasn't changed. His powers haven't diminished. I still believe He can and will resurrect physical bodies, but I just believe that maybe He's more interested in resurrecting spiritual lives. He longs to give us new life and purpose and hope. He longs to make strong our spiritual muscles and strengthen us to run the course of life through His strength instead to trying to do it on our own. When we live life attempting to assert our own plans and wills, settling for asking Him to bless OUR plans, we limit Him, and we limit ourselves.

As spring has (hopefully) sprung, our attentions are turned toward Easter and the never-ending aisles of peeps and jelly beans. Countless posts on Pinterest remind us of the cute bunny cakes that we believe we can make only to find a crumbled mass of cake crumbs and lime green coconut littering our kitchen counters and floors. Jesus is speaking to me this Easter of the power of the resurrection and the new life He came to bring. I want fresh new growth in my heart this spring. I love to open the windows in the spring and just allow the fresh air to flow through. Aren't you hungry for that in your soul too? He can and WILL bring the Resurrection.