The power of the Resurrection is a power that vanquishes every other power in heaven or Earth. The battle was the bitterest ever fought, but death was the loser; Jesus, the victor. Because “the tomb could not hold Him; snapped like a straw death’s omnipotent bars,”1 sin and death and sorrow need not hold us either. The same power is available to us if we will take it by faith.
There are many tombs in which we may be held if we succumb to the powers of sin and death. Hatred, self-pity, bitterness, resentment—these are tombs. By the power that raised Jesus Christ from that sealed and guarded tomb we may be delivered from whatever seals us off from life. Jesus came to give us life, nothing less than life, abundant life.
Do you know someone you are praying for who is living in the darkness of such a tomb? Has it seemed that there is no more possibility of getting through to him than to someone buried? Resentment has sealed him off from any approach. Pray for the power of the Resurrection to release him. Refuse, by the grace of God, to be held back by his bitterness. Then ask the Lord to help you to meet him next time in the consciousness of Christ risen. Instead of dreading the meeting because of the thought of former disastrous meetings, face it with joy. Christ is risen! Christ is risen!
May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect in all goodness so that you may do his will; and may he make of us what he would have us be through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever! Amen.
Hebrews 13:20-21
*Excerpt originally published in A Lamp Unto My Feet, pg. 191.
1. Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1955), p. 192.