Our blessed Lord and Savior died a horrific death on the cross. 2Corinthians 5:21(NLT) tells us, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” Before Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross, we were not right with God, and we couldn’t have with Him the kind of relationship that He wanted. Jesus Christ changed all that. His suffering was so gut-wrenching and beyond what any human could endure, that it took care of our sins for good—for all eternity! Our old worn out life was crucified with Christ, and when he rose from the dead with all power in his hands, our new life rose with him!
After our blessed Lord and Savior was resurrected, he was focused on what was ahead, not on what was left behind. This is such a lesson for us as his followers, because many of us are so consumed with our past, that we no longer cling to what Jesus has accomplished for us. Somehow, we have forgotten that old things have passed away and behold, all things are become new. And because we’ve forgotten this, we have been beating ourselves up and our hearts are still carrying a lot of pain and confusion from the past.
As believers, the one thing we must do every day of our lives is to remember what Christ has done for us. If we don’t remember his sacrifice and resurrection, our minds begin to slip back to their old way of thinking. We forget to live with faith and power. When this happens, we will not have the level and depth of thankfulness for God that we should. To let go and let God requires faith, and faith and thankfulness work together.
In Matthew 22:41-45, Jesus Christ asked the Pharisees, “What do you all think of Christ? Whose Son is he?” They answered, “The Son of David.” The Pharisees were the upper echelon of Jewish society, both in religion and politics. They wanted to see the Kingdom of David brought back into power. This was their chief interest—to restore the opulence and envy of the world that they had once enjoyed. They were huddled together on a mission to confront Jesus Christ and to put him to shame. They asked him a question initially and were baffled by this answer. He then questioned them about their thoughts of the Christ.
“What do you all think of Christ? Whose Son is he? were easy questions for the Pharisees to answer because they knew the writings of the prophets regarding the Messiah. They knew the Messiah had been promised by God to their ancestors, but they would not admit that this Messiah had arrived, that they desperately needed a Savior, and Jesus Christ was it. In this, we see the arrogance of satan in technicolor, and it was working in them, just as it works in many that are living today.
So, when the Pharisees answered the question that Jesus Christ asked, they did not answer the question from a position of faith. And because there was no faith, there could be no gratitude. They wouldn’t admit the truth of his supernatural birth, as King David, their ancestor had spoken of in the Book of Psalms. They would not believe that the Messiah who stood before them is God, one with all power, knowledge, mercy, and grace. We must note that it is simple enough for any of us to answer a question, but whether we believe the answer that we give deeply in our hearts is a whole other matter altogether.
If you believe God’s promise, a response is required. That response is to show your gratitude for the blessing. Philippians 4:6 instructs us to pray for what we want and then get excited and enthused as we thank God. We do this because even though the blessing hasn’t yet materialized in the natural realm, we know our God is faithful and the blessing is on its way. This excited gratitude is the response that God deserves from us about the resurrection of our Lord!
If we believe in God, we must have faith in what God believes and says, and we must believe it too. God’s faith is the basis of our faith. Even though we haven’t seen the future, we believe in what He says about it because He knows and has power over everything. God has absolute certainty—absolute faith—that everything He has spoken will come to pass. God’s faith is truth! God’s faith is unfailing. 2Chronicles 16:9 tells us that His eyes search throughout the whole earth looking for people who have a heart that believes His Word and have faith in Him.
Through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Godhead—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—were absolutely successful in putting us right with God. Our lives were rescued from slavery to satan and sin through God’s righteousness. Now, we should never get caught up in our own faults and shortcomings, because God has given us HIS righteousness, and there is no equal to it. There are no words in human vocabulary to capture the heft of what God gave us when He set us right with Himself through Jesus Christ. That old worn down, law-chasing, flesh-minded person is gone. It was killed off when Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross. He took upon himself all the sin that had corrupted humans, the sin that brought death to the human body, and he saved us. Because of what he did, we were purchased with the price of his life.
As born-again believers, we are knitted together with Christ. Our lives are in hidden in him. Our mandate from God is to represent Christ and to announce the goodness of God to others. This mandate is tied to our identity, and we ought to be excited about it. As children, serving God’s Kingdom in this way is a huge part of who He has made us. If we’re disconnected from our call, this disconnection will reverberate through all the other aspects of our existence. If you’ve ever needed evidence of this, look at the world around us. Many have fallen away from their Christian duty to pray and bless others, and the world desperately needs us to get busy doing what we’ve been put here to do.
2Corinthians 5:17(NIV) declares, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” The reason so many of us are disconnected from the call of God upon our lives is because we don’t fully believe in all that Christ accomplished for us through his death and resurrection. We don’t yet believe in the newness Christ has given us. On Easter Sundays, people ceremoniously take part in the celebration, but in their hearts, they don’t remember or recognize why they are celebrating. One of our traditions has been to buy new outfits for Easter Sunday and dress as beautifully as we can. This is to symbolize thankfulness and gratitude for being made new creations in Christ! It is to remember that old things have passed away, and we have been saved by the blood of the lamb!
Jesus Christ didn’t stay in the grave. He got up! He rose with all power in his hands, and because our lives are hidden in him, his victory is our victory. The Pharisees would not own the Messiah to be God, which is a truth that unlocks every door to abundance and blessings. They denied who he was and therefore denied the One True God, our Eternal Heavenly Father. We must not let this be said of us. Jesus Christ is Lord! God showed us this through his miraculous resurrection.
1Corinthians 4:20(NLT) says, “For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.” Through Christ, we can live by God’s power, and we should be swelled to overflowing with gratitude as we walk by faith and walk in the authority Christ has given us. Let’s remember the glory of God’s power through the resurrection of our blessed Savior. As we celebrate what Christ accomplished, let it be a continual reminder to leave that worn-out life behind, so that we can embrace the beautiful blessings that God is bringing into our lives. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Resurrection Power!” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!