What better miracle of God to focus on this Easter week than the miracle of the Resurrection?! May this short poem and meditation be a blessing to you as we approach such an important celebration. Much love, Lucy x
The Miracles Of God- The Resurrection
Romans 6:8-11
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“Jesus conquered sin and death and rose up from the grave.The Miracles Of God- The Resurrection
Romans 6:8-11
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Oh hail the Resurrected One, the God who came to save!
He faced the Cross on our behalf; with Christ, we’re dead to sin.
Thanks to our Redeemer, we are made alive in Him!”
Luke 24:5-8
“Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”
Insight and Reflection
I’ve heard it said that with all of the world religions, we see the common theme of mankind trying to make a ladder up to Heaven through “good deeds” and personal efforts. Humans constantly try to make themselves “worthy” of the afterlife through things such as bravery, self deprecation and honourable living.
What we see in Christianity, however, turns this idea on its head. God’s Word makes it very clear that no one can earn their way up to Heaven, it’s only because God came down to man that any of us can be saved.
Ephesians 2:8-9 words it this way,
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Isaiah 64:6 makes it clear that our own efforts fall drastically short when it comes to making us worthy and “clean” enough to come into the presence of God. The verse reads,
“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
The idea that we can live a life with enough “righteous” and “good” works to outweigh the bad is a flawed and unbiblical one. There is only one thing that makes us worthy to come before our perfect, Holy God and that’s the Cross of Christ. The only work that can save us and bring our souls redemption is the work Jesus did on Crucifixion Day. As Acts 4:12 tells us,
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
For the non-Christian who thinks their own “good deeds” will save them, this is a false belief. Only Jesus saves. For the Christian who thinks their righteous acts make them worthy of God’s love and acceptance, this is also a false belief that makes a mockery of the perfect work of the Cross and brings us back under the drudgery of the law.
As we read in Romans 6 earlier, Christ died to sin once for all. He declared upon the Cross, “It is finished.” His offering was perfect and anything we try to do in order to “add” to that perfection will only diminish it. You cannot touch something that is perfect and not reduce or damage it. If it is perfect, it must be left alone to stay that way.
So let’s ask ourselves,
Am I trying to earn my way to Heaven through my own efforts? Do I think doing “good things” and living a life of “good works” will mean I qualify for salvation when I die? Am I a Christian, trying to add to Christ’s work on the Cross with righteous deeds? Have I forgotten to rest in the finished work of the Cross?
I once wrote about this topic in my poem called, “Look Up!” Two of the lines read,
“Nothing we have done will let us enter Heaven’s Gate,
“Good deeds” will build a stairway but it can never hold sin’s weight.”
Whether we’re Christian or not, may we never fall for the lie that our own efforts can make us worthy of Heaven’s glory. They can’t. And praise God that they can’t because the truth remains that each soul is saved by God’s grace and His grace alone! May each heart turn to Jesus, our Risen Saviour and rest in His perfect and completed work of redemption!