A Resurrected Heart P2

{This post is the second half of a conversation started here.}

my lemon tree in bloom

Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. – Oswald Chambers

My sister Millie told me a few weeks ago that I had more issues than I realized. And I think know she’s right. As I have waded through questions about my views on men and marriage and God’s best and humanity’s worst, I have been surprised by what I found. I have discovered hurt, pride, anger, resentment and fear. It has not been an easy journey; it has forced me to confront some painful truths. But it has also brought me face to face with incredible freedom. And it has restored something to me that I didn’t even know I had lost – hope.

This whole thing started in my morning reading from John Stott’s Through the Bible, Through the Year:

We are always in danger of trivializing the gospel, of minimizing what God is able to do for us and in us. We speak of becoming a Christian as if it were no more than turning over a new leaf and making a few superficial adjustments to an otherwise secular life. But no, becoming and being a Christian, according to the New Testament is so radical that no language can do it justice except death and resurrection – death to the old life of self-centeredness and resurrection to a new life of love. In brief, the same God of supernatural power who raised Jesus from physical death can raise us from spiritual death. We know that he raised Him. Now our prayer is that in every aspect of our lives we may “know Christ and the power of His resurrection” (Phil. 3:10).

I started thinking about what that meant. I knew that Jesus’ death and resurrection meant that one day I would be able to spend eternity with Him in heaven, but could it also be that His resurrection affected my life NOW? I started to look in the Bible for passages about resurrection.

“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him though 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. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” – Romans 6:3-7

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” – 1 Peter 1:3

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death is no longer master over Him. For the death that He dies, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 6:8-11

“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies though His Spirit who dwells in you.” – Romans 8:11

“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…” Philippians 3:10

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.’” – John 11:25

It became apparent that the resurrection isn’t just hope for my dying; it is hope for my living!

When I came to realize that I had fallen short of God’s holy standard, that I had sinned, I first felt the chasm between God’s best and humanity’s worst. It didn’t matter who I blamed – Adam, Eve, Satan, God, my parents or myself – I still experienced it. And it is sin’s soul crushing weight. The truth is that all of humanity is born into brokenness, aching for the divine. As we grow, we understand that we have lost something…or maybe we’ve never found something… and we grasp at things we think might fill that longing. They never do, at least not permanently.

Twenty-eight years is more than enough time to realize that life is not a fairy tale. I have been wounded by words spoken and words withheld and had my heart bruised by action and inaction and seen that hurt people hurt people and ended up devastated by sin – others’ and my own. This is not a unique experience; it is universal.

 In the area of men, I have seen many good ones, but few godly ones. Spiritual leaders have been the exception, not the rule. Humility and servanthood and godly initiative have been most clearly exemplified in the lives of faithful women, not men in my life. And somewhere along the line, a dream died. It was the dream of a godly man. It was the dream of being a help-mate and serving Christ alongside a husband.  It happened so subtly that I didn’t even notice. My heart grew callous and I built walls and protected myself behind self-sufficiency.

Jesus died for that…for all that brokenness and sin and pride.

“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 15:57-58

The sting of life is the death of a thousand different dreams. Every death is clothed in sin’s curse. And I buckle underneath the burden of it all when I try to manage it myself…BUT “thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”  Jesus paid the price for humanity’s worst. Every word and deed, every motive and intent that missed the mark of His holiness, He bore. In His death He paid the price, satisfied the wrath of God and did away with the body of sin that caused me to live death. But that was not all. He rose again, redeeming what seemed lost and hopeless and creating a beginning from an end.

Romans teaches that every believer is not only united in His death, having died to their sin and being freed from the penalty of sin but also that every believer is united in His life, raised to experience newness of life and walk in the power of His resurrection. This life is not just the assurance that one day I will spend eternity with Him but a complete perspective shift as I see God’s resurrection power on display in all areas of my life.

The greatest question that remains for me is this: if He is able to redeem me from the curse of the law and break the power of sin in my life, is He not able to redeem my heart, my expectations and my dreams from the enemy’s attack?

What can give hope to a broken heart? The resurrection. The promise of life coming from death and the assurance that God’s best is bigger than humanity’s worst. A resurrected heart is a rescued heart, hopeful and expectant that “the LORD will accomplish what concerns me,” Psalm 138:8a.

You can reach me at: maurie@onesinglevoice.com