the power of the resurrection

Easter Sunday. Today is THE day. I mean if you are a believer today is why we live. I don't know what I was expecting when I walked through the doors this morning at church, really this Sunday is a celebration that holds substantial significance for me as a believer in Christ. My family and I are so incredibly blessed to belong to a church body that is not only Bible believing and Bible-living, but one that engages its' people and seeks to disciple the congregation and see them grow into maturity. So on a weekly basis our Pastor sends a note out about what his sermon will be about. I use that as a tool to begin praying that the Lord would open my eyes and speak to my heart specifically through His word and transform me into the likeness of His Son. This week, being Easter...I wasn't sure what scripture to expect, and when I got the email with the reference to Philippians 3:10 I was surprised and SO excited to see how the Lord was going to speak to my heart through a Pauline Epistle that was related to Easter. Wow...was I just completely awestruck by the Lord this morning!!

I just want to share a little of what the Lord was speaking to my heart this morning as it was so amazing. Here we go, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death" Phil. 3:10 Have you ever really stopped to think about what it means to be conformed to the death of Christ? I mean, I have...but not like today. The death of Christ, was just that, His death. The One and Only, Perfect and Holy Savior of the world had to die for us, because God requires a sacrifice for sin, and as sinful humans we can NEVER ever sacrifice enough or do enough to earn the forgiveness of a Perfect and Holy God. But see, what's so spectacular about Christ's death, was that Christ Himself in His power raised Himself from the dead, and therefore has complete and total victory over it. Meaning death can do nothing to Christ. Death can not hold back our Lord! Ever!

"For the wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23 and "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23. If the wages of sin is death and I am by nature sinful then I am destined to die, yet as I accepted Christ as my Savior that I may know Him and being conformed to His death which ultimately was victorious over sin, because He no longer is dead but is risen and is alive....he defeated death. I too, as a sinner, saved by the marvelous grace of God, am victorious over sin. I can choose to say "no" to sin. As the sinful flesh is one of our enemies we face on earth, we can choose to say no to sin and rest in the victory of the resurrection of our Savior. "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." Romans 6:4

Ladies we are FREE to walk in newness of life. We are free to walk away from the opportunity to gossip. We are free in Christ to stop ourselves mid-sentence no matter what we may look like, and politely say, "you know I need to stop myself and not say what I was about to." We are free to love our spouses with reckless abandon when a healthy and happy marriage are not the "norm" of society today. We are free to love on the clerk at the grocery store no matter what others around us think. We are FREE to live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27) without excuse. Our lives will look radically different, and we may lose a few 'friends.' We may not be the most popular...we may not be the one everyone loves to be around...but we are free in Christ to love and obey Him and say no to sin. We are free in Him to radically pursue Him in His word without thought to being legalistic...it's not about a set of rules, it's about desiring God from the heart and passionately pursuing His transformation in our lives that we may KNOW HIM and the power of the resurrection...and in turn..live out Christ in our lives passionately.

I feel as I walk in the newness of life, the new self, the new creation that Christ has made me, I see more scrutiny from the outside world. I see the judgments of fellow believers, I hear the gossip of those around. I know it's there, and I look to the Lord and I think , Lord that I may know you and the power of the resurrection and the fellowships of His sufferings. It's okay, people can talk about me, I may not be cool, I may not have a ton of friends...but I've got the best friend of all, I've got Jesus. Who willingly laid down His life for me, defeated death for me, and allows me to walk in newness of life. God is doing this in me, "and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him-- {a renewal} in which there is no {distinction between} Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all." Col. 3:10-11.

Ladies if you are a believer God will do it in you too! He longs to transform you, as in the words from Hosea, "Sow with a view to righteousness, Reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD Until He comes to rain righteousness on you." Hosea 10:12 Ladies beg the Lord to break up the fallow ground of your heart that you may seek Him, sow seeds with a view towards righteousness, make yourself daily aware of the victory we have over sin BECAUSE of the power of the resurrection. Resolve to walk in newness of life...put off the old self and put on the Lord Christ. Do it, ladies love the Lord your God to His glory and for His fame!! That the name of Christ may be known in and through us.

To God be the glory!!!!