Walking in the early morning

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:25-26

“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

Rev 12:10-11

Walking in the early morning, I was wondering how to begin to thank God for what Jesus has done for me and the answer came back… “By believing it, laying hold of it and proclaiming it”. Jesus asked Martha “Do you believe it?” He’s asking us the same question.

We celebrate on Easter Sunday because Christ is risen! Jesus is alive! The message of redeeming love is profound and the freedom won for us to come back into relationship with God, cleansed of our sins, is humbling.

But there is more. The language from the Revelation passage is violent. It speaks of the power and authority of the kingdom of God and the spiritual battle that has been won in the heavenly realms….a battle we need to engage in as Christ’s representatives here and now. Perhaps now more than ever, we need to lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of us and be prepared for the cost, even as we give thanks for the ultimate victory.

Lord Jesus, thank you for saving me and thank you that you have put your Spirit in my heart guaranteeing what is to come. Fill me again with your Holy Spirit and help me to take this love that you have poured out on me and give it away to a world desperate to know you. Teach me to claim that blood, shed for me and to open my mouth so my lips can proclaim your praise.