The Power of the Resurrection

Everything in life for the Christian depends on the resurrection. Paul noted this in his letter to the Ephesians when he wrote, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..." (Eph 1:18).


When we accept the truth of the resurrection, we gain access to the power that accomplished it. Power that enables us to think new thoughts to deliver us from our self-destructive musings. Power that transforms all our hopelessness into confident expectation. Power that provides us with every resource we need to display the glory of God through our lives.


The power of God is available to all who believe. The challenge for every Christian is not God's ability or will to act, but whether or not we believe. To be specific, the challenge is whether we believe the Word of God when He tells us to act. For instance, when God tells us to speak of Jesus to the world, promising that they will believe, we have a choice. Will we speak, believing that God will save? Will we remain quiet, convinced that the world doesn't even want to hear. When God tells us to "not let the sun go down while you are still angry," do we believe Him enough to follow His instruction? Or do we give up in defeat and say, "That's impossible."


The power of the resurrection is a deposit from God to those who would follow Jesus Christ, challenging us to believe God with absolute faith. Dead men don't walk out of their grave, yet Jesus did. After that, what has not been conquered or what cannot be conquered in your life? Unfortunately, in our small thinking, too many of us who claim to follow Christ weigh ourselves down with all kinds of baggage that leaves us powerless to really live.


We hang onto hurts, using them as an excuse as to why we cannot be free. We cling to unfulfilled dreams, paralyzing us from moving on to grander possibilities. We pursue volume instead of value, wondering why satisfaction never comes. We persist in patterns that diminish us, lamenting why we can never gain control of our lives.


The resurrection of Jesus changes all of this... if we will believe. Believing is not easy, but it is possible. And Paul gives us the answer as to how at the beginning of the passage we cited above. Paul prayed for his friends in Ephesus to experience the power of the resurrection of Christ and by extension, challenged them to pray for each other and themselves. If we hope to be different, we need the power of God to make us different and we gain access to Him through persistent, believing prayer.

Now Is the Time

As we move through the week from Palm Sunday to Easter, Christ-followers have the single greatest opportunity of the year to reach out to those who do not have a relationship with Jesus. The culture of Christianity in our nation is still strong enough to draw millions to churches this coming weekend. The question is whether or not believers will take advantage of the opportunity and pastors will partner with their congregations for maximum effect for the sake of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Pastors, now is not the time to ridicule all your visitors, by calling them Chreaster's or saying something demeaning at the end of your sermon like, "See the rest of you at Christmas." Now is the time to lovingly, boldly pray for all those visitors coming to your church and be prepared with the best offering in the form of a sermon you can possibly bring. Now is the time to partner with your congregation to reward the work of their invitation by preaching in such a way that helps initiate spiritual conversations between your members and their friends.

Christ-followers, now is not the time to hang back and assume that your unchurched friends will show up at church somewhere and hear the Good News of Jesus this Easter. You simply cannot leave the well-being of their eternal soul to chance. If know that your pastor will be clearly communicating the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ along with a call to repentance and faith, then you need to partner with your pastor to get your friends to church this weekend. You need to pay close attention to the message and make yourself available afterwards for spiritual conversations. You need to be praying for God's Spirit to soften hearts and open minds to the message of Jesus.

Now is the time to be bold, my friends, for the cause of Christ.

Praying for Easter

The Reason We're Here

We are a little more than a week away from EASTER. Were it not for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, there would be no churches. More importantly, there would be no hope for this life or the next. As we approach this Easter, I pray that believers everywhere will recognize the power of a singular event in history... the resurrection. May we not shy away from sharing that we truly believe something happened. We are not advocating a better religion or a better philosophy. We believe that because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and showed Himself to more than 500 people, He has proven that all He said is true and we can bank our eternity on it.

I'm asking the members of Fall Creek to be bold in your invitations to friends, neighbors, and co-workers to come and consider the claims of the man who walked out of His own grave 2000 years ago.