On this Resurrection Sunday, let us remember that there is power in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After Jesus has risen from the dead, soldiers tried to cover up Jesus’ final act of redemption, getting out of the tomb, with a fabricated story that someone stole Jesus’ body (Matthew 28:13). Although Christians may disagree on certain doctrinal principals and theological points, we all have to agree, as Christians, that Jesus rose from the dead. If we did not believe this important truth, we would not call ourselves Christians. In today’s society, people are still trying to cover up this truth with fabrications and other stuff that would dissuade us from believing anything else. We must proclaim this truth, not just with our words, but we must proclaim in our own resurrection experiences.
It is one thing to say with our lips that Jesus rose from the dead, but it is another thing, to live out Jesus’ resurrection in our lives. We live out the resurrection in our lives in the way we treat one another. If we believe that Jesus’ truly rose from the dead, we would love more and make intentional steps to love people who do not look like us, talk like us, or smell like us. We would even swallow our pride and forgive someone who has hurt us deeply. To love like we should requires Resurrection power. We live out the Resurrection when we do something that requires more than who we are on the inside. How many of us have thrown in the tile on dreams, neglected divine callings of ministry, and remained in a cocoon rather than becoming a butterfly because we were scared? This is one of the reasons why the people wanted to deny Jesus’ resurrection—they were afraid of what this meant in their lives. We need to rid our fears of Jesus’ power and embrace it in our lives—and live out this power by stepping out on faith. Many of us are living in tombs right now.
Fear of this power has us tucked away in places of death, immobility, and stagnation. But if we are willing to confess the power of the resurrection, we can rise up to the occasion and do the will of God. We can because Jesus rose from the dead. We live out the resurrection in our lives when we speak authority over the devil. The devil is working on convincing us daily, hourly, by the minute that Jesus did not get up from the grave. This is his goal to make us believe that Jesus does not love us and did not have the power to defeat death. The devil does this by discouraging us, making us believe that we are not worthy to be loved—persuading us to believe that we have no authority over him. The truth is we have authority over him, and we can rebuke him and make him tremble at the name of Jesus. He has no authority over our families, children, finances, minds, destinies, or any other part of our lives.
When we embrace the power of the resurrection, we will be able to take back anything he has stolen from us, and move forward in spite of what circumstances say or what the devil tries to make us believe about our situation. This Resurrection Sunday, embrace the greatest act of love shown to humanity—the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
