Tag: resurrection

living risen on Monday

It had its own paragraph, tucked away on page 117 in Gospel Deeps by Jared C. Wilson and this one sentence struck a chord that has been resonating ever since,

If suffering was good enough for Him, shouldn’t it be good enough for us?

Well, wow. What to say here… We all say “yes” because it would seem so horrible to say anything else. Our Savior, Christ the Lord who holds all things together died. He held all things together as fully God while walking around as fully man. And then…

He allowed Himself to be undone unto death so that we might rise and be held together in Him.

And Christ was never less than perfect. Though he died the death of a criminal, He never lived less than perfectly. The God of all creation became like us (whoa) and then became sin for us (wow) and suffered every temptation for us (oof) and endured death on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God (oh my).

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV)

The resurrection swell of Easter was still spilling over yesterday, burying again the death of Jesus with the triumph of his third day victory. The Easter season, according to the church calendar, has really just begun and I want to observe the fullness of it. Because resurrection changed everything, not just a food-packed Sunday selected by the lunar calendar. EVERYTHING. And, I think it’s good to have a season set apart to reflect on the weight of “everything.”

Even a full season won’t condition my heart as it should, but God has promised to complete the work He has started and to make perfect (in Christ) my imperfect attempts to believe. And so, I stand in the swell of the Easter season asking what it looks like to live risen on Monday… and Tuesday – Friday.

What happened in the living, dying, and rising of Jesus happened in real time – the clock measured His footsteps up to Calvary and the three days after he died. The light broke the dawn on Sunday, marking the morning and Jesus’ day of resurrection.

But the glory of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is not contained on the calendar. Before the foundations of the world (Romans 8:29) – before the light broke the first morning and before the ground felt the weight of any feet – God planned to lavish love on His chosen through the person and sacrificial work of Christ.

How deep the Father’s love for us,
how vast beyond all measure,
that He would give His only Son,
and make a wretch His treasure
(How Deep the Father’s Love, Stuart Townend)

The beauty of God’s love for us runs as deep as eternity stretches long. We know from Psalm 115:3 that God acts out of His pleasure, “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

Just let the weight of “whatever He pleases” sink in deep. He was pleased to plan before the dawn of time for our redemption. He was pleased to send His Son, who emptied Himself and died in our place. He was pleased to bring reconciliation through the resurrection. It was God’s will to crush His Son so that we could be counted righteous.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:10-11)

What does it mean to live risen on Monday and Tuesday and Saturday? It means believing that God’s love was not constrained to a weekend nor the power that it produced. God was planning in the forever past for our redemption and prepares a place for us in the forever future.

Christ’s suffering did not take away from God’s glory, but revealed it. In Christ, God pulls back the curtain so that we can gaze on His glorious character and find it is nothing like anything we know. What we see and savor in Christ will allow us to endure the suffering the same way – revealing the glory of God.

Living like I’m risen means believing God planned all along for me to rise and trusting God to keep His promises.

Posted on by Caroline 2

God is glorified in our love for one another

She wandered in to the kitchen, shrugged her shoulders and said, “What can I do?”

Twenty years of provision fell heavy on my heart and I brimmed with thanksgiving. My grandma, who had hosted countless Easter gatherings at her home and provided the homemade bread and deviled eggs for too many Easter gatherings at my parents’ to count. Her knobby fingers have kneaded more dough and cleared more dining room tables than mine can dream about.

And she wandered into my little kitchen after our ragamuffin Easter dinner to offer her help. But, not just to wash the dishes and de-bone the chicken… because as we scrubbed the carmelized onions out of the bottom of the stew pot, she asked how she could pray for me. We chatted about how to make the best beef stew from roast leftovers and about how to make creative meals out of de-boned lemon sage chicken. And she said she was praying about my job constantly. She put her hand on my arm and looked at me with a steady gaze and assured me she was praying.

This was the first Easter my sister and I hosted at our humble rental home in our little Des Moines neighborhood. We invited our neighbors, our grandparents, and a few friends. We conquered Lemon Sage Chicken and Chuck Roast Dinner with (surprisingly) very few catastrophes or disastrous substitutions. The sunshine started early and was still proclaiming resurrection joy when we arrived at our house after church.

I’ll admit, no amount of Febreze in any scent can compare to a house with a roast in the oven. The smell was coming out the windows when I invited my grandparents inside, where they spread out the deviled eggs and fresh baked french loaf. Just before our celebration began, our neighbor Louie came over to bring a jello salad and his regrets that he wouldn’t be able to make it with his wife. We made plans to have them over for dinner soon (and vice versa) and I introduced Louie to my Grandpa.

Our guests around the table ranged in age from 15 to 80, but the laughter was all the same level after my Grandpa said grace. We enjoyed elderberry jelly and lemon-buttery potatoes and conversation and laughter. We enjoyed it all and we enjoyed each other and our laughter lingered long after enjoying my Gram’s puff pastry dessert with coffee.

But, it was that moment when my Grandma wandered into the kitchen to offer her help (and more than just her help), that I breathed a sigh of gratitude for the way we are designed for relationship.

Our front doors are meant to swing open to family and friends and strangers – to break bread with one another, delight in the gathering and the eating and the laughing and the conversing. We are made to live together in relationship and our hearts are glad when we live as we were made to live.

My heart was full today as we broke bread together, as we laughed together, as we prayed together, as we washed dishes together, and as my Grandma looked me in the eyes and told me she prays for me constantly.

Because I know she does.

God has woven our hearts together intentionally to reveal His glory. He is glorified as we benefit by loving one another, sharing with one another, bearing each others’ burdens, and wandering into the kitchen to say, “How can I help?”

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

just as He said

“He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”
Matthew 28:6, emphasis added

God keeps His promises – He will do what He says He will do.
He has never broken a promise, not ever. 

This morning I am caught up in the rhythm of believing – the every moment proclamation that God is, in fact, trustworthy. He did what He said He would do… freely, joyfully, and painfully enduring the cross so that we could come close and be reconciled. He suffered, as He said He would, on our behalf and for our ransom.

Then He rose, as He said He would, in victory over the grave and to secure our souls’ resurrection.

Just as He said.

He conquered death and offers us the every moment victory over the same. We are united with Him in His resurrection and invited to see just how trustworthy is our God.

Every moment, trustworthy.
Every moment, gracious.
Every moment, forgiving.
Every moment, loving.
Every moment, joyful over our reconciliation to Himself.

Every moment, keeping His promises.
I am moved to joyful belief because my God chooses to keep His promises to me.

Every moment, the God of all creation keeps His promises to His little, created ones.
Posted on by Caroline 2

like a lot of little earthquakes

If you seek God looking for an answer, you will end up with an idol. If you seek God looking for God, you will always find Him and you will always be satisfied.

The truths of Jeremiah 29:13-14 and Deuteronomy 4:29 are trustworthy words and the above is my paraphrase when I’m tempted to look for an answer instead.

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29:13-14 ESV)

But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
(Deuteronomy 4:29 ESV)

These are trustworthy words because the Lord breathed them into being for our benefit. He draws us near so that we can be held, grasped, and secured in the sweet joy of His presence. He draws us near so we can enjoy Him – and He can always be found.

I’m learning what it means for the resurrection to break into my brain space that I had reserved for other things. It’s like a lot of little earthquakes. The sand shifts and the mountains crumble and only the firm foundation remains. And like a lot of little earthquakes, the lesser things look less appealing as my feet run to stand on what will remain.

In grace, God breaks the power of lesser affections so that I can stand with joy on what remains.

As I seek the Lord as my first and greatest affection (and not just for answers), these words  out of Counsel from the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson are especially savory,

“He has contracted to place himself in covenant relationship with us and to make us his own.

Yes, his love for us is a contractual agreement, but it is so much more than cold, lifeless obligation. He has generously determined to satiate our souls with happiness. He has chosen to betroth us to himself: ‘I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness’ (Hosea 2:19-20).”

When God breaks the power of my lesser affections, He determines to satiate my soul with happiness. He has chosen to betroth me to Himself. Wow. 

I’m not sure what it feels like to have my soul satiated with happiness, but I want to feel it. I want to be fully satisfied with the kind of happiness my soul can feel. And today I know this happiness is real – as real as my coffee and my distractions and my fears and the giggles I can’t control.

The happiness God offers will remain when all the little earthquakes shake out the lesser affections.
let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

hearing the gospel song

“Like you, I need to hear the gospel song over and over again because my soul is a sieve and the gospel leaks out of it, leaving only the husk of Christianity – my self-righteousness and obligations.” Elyse Fitzpatrick in “Counsel from the Cross“

You’ll probably have to read that little nugget one more time. I did, anyway.

Is your soul a sieve the gospel leaks out of, leaving the shells of human efforts on top? I feel like no matter how many times I go to the river to fill up my cup, I will soon be found in the desert and empty.

Empty because I let the gospel seep out. Empty because our soul can only be a sieve on this side of heaven.

And that’s why we need the gospel song over and over again – because pretending to be filled only keeps us empty.

In the book, Fitzpatrick asks a friend who is struggling, “How do you think the resurrection impacts this circumstance?” Her friend responds, “I know it should but I just don’t know how.”

How many times is this true of us? We really do believe – in a Sunday knowledge kind of way – that Christ transforms us.

But, we also really believe that Christ has little to do with our best friend’s gambling problem or our parents’ divorce or our children’s grades. We know Christ is in all things and holds all things together (Colossians 1:17), but we also know that little Johnny has had to stay inside from recess because he is spitting at girls.

Can it really be true that the resurrection – that event that took place 2,000 years ago – could impact the gambling and the divorce and the grades and Johnny? And if the resurrection does have impact (because we know it should), does that mean we just expect all those circumstances to change for the better – kind of like neosporin for cuts?

And that’s why we need the gospel song over and over again – because pretending to be filled only keeps us empty.

When we tackle gambling and divorce and misbehaving little ones apart from the resurrection, we are aides in destruction. When we believe that God is not relevant or helpful or interested in those matters, we are saying that we are the best solution. We convince ourselves that God is a useful “help in times of trouble” only in certain circumstances and for the rest, it’s good old-fashioned DIY (because who knows your problems better than you, anyway?).

How’s that working out for you, champ? Not so good, at least for me. Soon enough, I’ll come crawling back to the throne of grace with all those husks on the top of the sieve and say, “Lord, I’m empty. Give me some of that gospel truth. Remind me what it means that you died and rose again. Remind me of the resurrection.”

The power of the resurrection is in believing God’s sovereignty stretched so far to allow the worst suffering in order to allow the most glory and joy.

The truth is, God is not surprised by your gambling or divorce or Johnny’s spitting. God is not surprised by your fear or your pride or your greed or your desperate need for coffee at 7 am. He is not surprised when you lust after a married man or worry about your jean size or lie on your taxes.

The power of the resurrection is that God was never surprised at sin – that He sent His Son while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8) – and that Christ’s death and resurrection effectively conquers and cancels sin in our lives. Today. Not two thousand years ago. Today – the coffee, the gambling, the pride, Johnny’s spitting, the divorce, and the jealousy.

Christ canceled sin when he endured the cross, “for the joy set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2). And this canceling power frees us to have joy in the middle of struggle and pain and confusion.

This sin-canceling power frees us to live like no circumstance will bury us in the ground, because we have been raised up.

So, let the gospel song be sung over you again and again today. Get filled up and then get filled up again. Sing the power of the resurrection until you forget the words and then listen for the words again.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 2