I had never met them before but yesterday I was privileged to sit for 6-7 minutes and listen to their story. Both had come from a life I had never seen or experienced except on some TV drama or film. An early life of despair and hatred of others and themselves. Finding themselves mixing with the wrong people who were equally in the same darkness or worse it led to them arriving into their own personal hell. Addicted, broken and dead to anything good there was literally no hope. Except sitting in front of me yesterday were 2 beautiful people who had passion and a purpose. They spoke with love and kindness towards others. They were truly changed people from the stories they told of themselves. How was that possible? These next 3 verses reveal how:
“There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28 v 2-4)
It is the centre of what we believe. It is the offence of the gospel. It is why there is only one way to heaven through Jesus Christ. It is why Jesus is more than a prophet. It is why Jesus is the Son of God, God himself. It is why those who put their trust in him will never die but be raised to new life. It is what changed Sheryl and Ben’s life.
Jesus did not need an exit or an entrance. The stone was rolled away not for Jesus to get out but the disciples to get in and see.
The resurrection happened before the stone was rolled away.
It is time for a violent earthquake to take place. It is time to get out of the grave. There are more Sheryl’s and Ben’s in our world that need this experience. But what about you? It is time for a shaking of your life towards the circumstance that holds you.
What is in the way of you rising from failure? Of moving forward in God?
Don’t wait for what you think should happen before you make a decision. Decide now. Choose Christ now. Call out to God now. And as you do I believe God will do something remarkable in your life.
What was dead, dying in work, home and life will come to life again.
Whatever was hindering you will not be because the stone has rolled away
A minister was in Italy, and there he saw the grave of a man who had died centuries before who was an unbeliever and completely against Christianity, but a little afraid of it too. So the man had a huge stone slab put over his grave so he would not have to be raised from the dead in case there is a resurrection from the dead. He had insignias put all over the slab saying, “I do not want to be raised from the dead. I don’t believe in it.” Evidently, when he was buried, an acorn must have fallen into the grave. So a hundred years later the acorn had grown up through the grave and split that slab. It was now a tall towering oak tree. The minister looked at it and asked, “If an acorn, which has power of biological life in it, can split a slab of that magnitude, what can the acorn of God’s resurrection power do in a person’s life?”
The minute you decide to receive Jesus as Saviour and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It’s the power of the resurrection—the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead …. Think of the things you see as immovable slabs in your life—your bitterness, your insecurity, your fears, your self-doubts. Those things can be split and rolled off. The more you know him, the more you grow into the power of the resurrection.
Sheryl and Ben have a story of the power of resurrection to change lives and so do we.
Missions Paul 