Resurrection power

There is true life in the Lord. Everyone who dies in the Lord lives again. If this is the end of all things-we are the greatest of all fools and our preaching is vain, “and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 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” (1 Corinthians 15:14-17). Resurrection is not just a doctrine; it is a reality that every disciple of the Lord must want to understand so that he can possess the life that sustains everything in this universe. Jesus died in order to live again, and so were the first century Christians. All died yet lived again because in death is the entry into life eternal. Our present trials on earth prepare us to partake of that eternal life.

Both the life that we live today is not far apart from the life that we will partake in the Lord; they are too connected not to be taken seriously. Just as the earth is bipolar, with two opposing poles, righteousness and wickedness are two poles in the universe where men gravitate. Those who are renewed in Christ will gravitate towards righteousness and therefore to eternal life, others committed to do wickedness have nowhere to go but down to hell. We are storing for tomorrow what we are living today. It is just deciding where we should go. Those who have sown their life to eternity are not afraid to die because the power of life is greater than death itself. Jesus has broken the power of death, cutting in two the curtain that separates the presence of God to those who are in the sanctuary, showing us that all can come to Him without fearing to die. Jesus is the answer to all our problems; He is also the answer to the question of a distant God.

Trials in life

There are trials throughout our lives on earth. Some stay on the same trial, fighting the same struggles again and again until they are taken from this earth. Others partook of increasing trials in intensity but in all of these, the promise of the Lord is peace in the midst of it. As He has shown through the parable of the storm, both the wise and the foolish builders have to cope from the storm that is coming, one however understood and built his house on the rock while the other one was oblivious of the warning of the storm and still built his house on the sand. The castles of men are precarious and the foundation of them will topple like a deck of cards at the slightest blow of the wind. Those whose lives are founded on humanism will eventually find it that their foundation is sloppy and have to either run on Higher Ground or face the danger of drowning.

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. “But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:46-49)

All our difficulties in this life are meant to do just that, cleanse our hearts from sin, purify our intentions and make our devotions sincere and pure. Paul wrote, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:3-4 NKJV). Paul knew the dangers that he faced when he prayed to the Lord to be conformed to His death. Like Jesus, Paul died alone, most of his followers were away from him and he endured loneliness many thousands of times not only during his travels but also during his imprisonment and trials. When he recounted to Timothy his trials, it was meant for him to continue to follow in the footsteps of his father, knowing that he will soon depart from this world, “But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured” (2 Timothy 3:10 NKJV).

Comfort my people

All of these trials are not without basis; they have been given to us, for us to be able to comfort others too. Which is why the Lord did not take you instantly to heaven when you were born again; we share in the sufferings of this world so that we who have been afflicted could know how to bear others up in the same situation. Again we are told, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:3-6).

Every negative thing that happens to us, the Lord eventually turns for our own good. For example, all the trials that Paul suffered were allowed by the Lord so that in it, he could comfort all believers and his teachings will not be superficial because he had experienced them and knew what it means to suffer and be afflicted, “But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer;  and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:7-10).

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

True Faith

The baptism of John has prepared the people of Israel to receive Jesus Christ who came to preach Life. Without the baptism of John, the people could not have understood well Jesus’ message of life. Because John preached repentance and the need for a renewed life, the baptism or immersion on the river Jordan to present oneself as new again, committed to a clean living. In fact Jesus picked up where John finished, He also preached repentance and new life, but He elaborated more the Kingdom of God more than John because as John confessed, the earthly could only speak about the earth but He Who was from heaven speaks more of the Heavenly Kingdom.

There is a big difference between believing with our minds and believing with our hearts. How could someone who confesses to be a Christian not believed in resurrection life? If we truly believed in our hearts the truth of resurrection life, we would live our lives differently. Our lives would be radically different from most Christians’ lives. Many among us are deluded that our intellectual assent on doctrines of the Bible or historical facts are in fact faith! Many are made safe in this vulnerable condition because preachers speak of an easy salvation. True faith is not merely doctrinal or agreement on certain aspects of the Bible. It is life; it is a living way that all must truly partake as a whole, not merely a certain part of your life every Sunday or every Friday.

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)

Faith to be true must not only be in the mind, it must be a strong conviction, so strong that we actually live what we know. Faith is stronger than mere belief because believing in something is just giving intellectual assent; while to have faith in something is to have an inseparable devotion to the object of our faith. True faith is much part of the person so that even death could not separate it. This difference between faith and belief is the difference between a mere pretender who deluded himself into believing something that is not true to appease himself.

The pervasive doctrine promulgated by many as merely believing in God but not becoming a disciple and follower of Jesus results to many lives whose eternal destiny is in jeopardy. The trials in life or the wilderness experience that we have were meant to transform this superficial belief into a cemented faith, so strong that trials cannot blow them down. If we allow trials to dictate our faith, to change our perspective of God and distance ourselves from Him, then it shows the true color of our hearts. We have not really believed Him. This is what happened to Judas, he kept part of his heart from the Lord. He believed in Jesus, followed His train, healed the sick, cast out demons and preached about Jesus but he has not truly developed his faith in Him. True faith rests in the abilities of the One Who knows all things. It is not in our faith or abilities that we are delivered or receive healing and deliverance.

Faith to be true does not only lie on the miracle working power of God or the gifts that He has given us. It is above all a firm belief, a union of faith and trust so strong that not even death could take it away. Faith is a living power that can dump a mountain into the sea. All trials in life, our wilderness will convert the shallow definitions of faith that we subscribe to, and transform these concepts into life. Those who abide in true faith manifest true life and ignite the passion of many into a devoted life in Christ Jesus. Our prayer should be “Lord conform me into your image, help me experience your resurrection life in the midst of trials.”