Thursday, Apr. 07, 2005 - 10:59 a.m.

Power

I know all about resurrection power theologically. Ephesians tells me all about the power You will use on my behalf, the same power that was used to raise Jesus from the dead. I even know the word used for that power is from the same root as the word for dynamite, but EE has done it again. I have never thought about those things that bind us as being tombs. Places of the dead. Horrible, dark, and full of creepiness. You are the Jehovah Deliverer.
*
*
*
*
*
Title: Death Shall Not Hold Us

Author: Elisabeth Elliot

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" (Amy Carmichael: Edges of His Ways, p. 192), 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 where 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 us perfect in all goodness so that we 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" (Heb 13:20,21 NEB).

EE's devotional

newAutumn Leaves

previous - next