092023 faithpasting

[prismaticbleed]

(just this day specifically. the realtime spiritual struggle captured here deserves its own entry.)


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God blesses those people who grieve. They will find comfort!

Matthew 5:4 CEV

I'm still bereft of comfort in my grief over sin. Yet, in that very mourning there is a strange consolation-- I am able to grieve. I can recognize the wrongness. I feel the break between me and God and it breaks my heart. Perhaps God is blessing me in this prolonged agony; perhaps to cut it short by comfort would defeat its ultimate purpose. Perhaps the only comfort I actually need is the one I paradoxically already have, even while sobbing-- God has graced me with contrition, and in that enduring ache, He is ever liberating me from the prison of those sins. If that is so... then Lord, let me grieve.

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DAILY DEVOTIONALS (Bible plans really) =

What’s my response to Jesus’ obedience to God the Father? What’s my response to his anguish in the garden? Do I fall on my knees in worship before a God who knew the torturous journey that lay ahead and yet determined to follow through? Do I allow it to become a personal revelation for my life?

"Jesus was a human being. Fully God, yes, but also fully us. God coming into the world in human form was an affirmation that creation – physical, tangible, messy creation – is good. Very good. And that includes you. Jesus was not just a revelation of God; He was a revelation of humanity at its most human. To grow into the likeness of Christ, therefore, is to uncover who we truly are made to be.
Life in all its fullness isn’t about becoming less like you; it’s about becoming more like the you that God made – whoever and wherever you are. It’s about repairing the brokenness, stripping away the labels that society places upon us, and letting the Spirit uncover the divine image within us... God did not distance Himself from humanity, but entered into the very heart of it."
...I love that God is giving us so much about true identity lately. That's literally an answered prayer. Thank You God. Please help us INTEGRATE all of this & ACT ON IT. Give us time to type about it, please!!

LIKEWISE =
"Jesus underlines how important it is for us to know who we are. Because of His inward assurance that He is the Beloved of God, He is consistently His own person, able to pour Himself out in extravagant self-giving, and is finally free to lay His life down in complete self-surrender upon the cross. Secure in His interactive relationship with God the Father, He resists the wilderness temptations to forge an identity based on the illusions of success, popularity or power. Not once throughout his life does He need to "prove Himself", win the approval of contemporaries, or be involved in any manipulative power games. Knowing who He is, Jesus invests Himself single-mindedly in the realization of His Father’s Kingdom vision for our broken world."
There is SO MUCH to unpack there and it's ALL ESSENTIAL.

"Each time today that you look in the mirror, say aloud, ‘You are someone in whom God dwells and delights’.
Lord, awaken my heart and mind to who I really am."

I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart.
Psalm 139:14 GNT

"How does God’s rule come about on Earth? The Pharisees of Jesus’ day would have insisted this was a matter for God to determine. Our place was to wait passively for it to happen. The best we could do was to look out for signs of its arrival. Jesus presented things differently. He brought God’s presence, power, and authority into human affairs in a dynamic way, so that anything which prevents the thriving of creation would be ultimately overcome."
FOCUS ON THOSE WORDS. Think of WHAT Jesus did and APPLY those words to His work. UNDERSTAND.

"...By describing the kingdom as “in your midst,” Jesus suggests we have a part to play. The phrase He uses might be better translated “within your grasp.” As we accept God’s invitation to be His hands and feet, we help to bring about the healing of His creation so that His rule is made manifest.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, In Your coming to Earth, You made known to us the reality of God’s kingdom. Give us courage to lay hold of the power and authority You have entrusted to us, and to partner with You in revealing Your rule on Earth as in Heaven. Amen."


"May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.
May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.
Amen."
(A Franciscan benediction)
It means a lot that when we read a prayer like this, our immediate & instinctive thought is "THAT IS US." THIS is what resonates powerfully with our heart, and THAT speaks volumes as to who we TRULY ARE by God's grace despite all the damage.

Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Isaiah 1:17 AMPC

"In His divinity, Jesus bore the weight of the sin of mankind. In his humanity, he experienced all the pain, agony, and humiliation of the cross."
"Jesus, our Savior and Friend, lived the perfect life that we could not live, and died to pay sin’s penalty that really we deserved to pay. In His great love, He paid an unbelievable price to leave the glory of heaven to come to this broken world to save us from ourselves."
"Sit, think and meditate for a moment on the divine miracle, the divine paradox of Creator God becoming the suffering Savior. Now, what are you feeling inside about your relationship to Jesus? And what is your natural response?"
"In love, receive His gift of grace upon grace... praise & adore Him for Who He Is and what He has done for you."


"The path of pride is a way of life that is centered on oneself. In this parable, Jesus says that there are those that depend on themselves and condemn others. This is the fundamental attitude towards life in which I depend only upon my own insight and might. I compare myself to others and find that I am better than they are.
Humility is the opposite road. It is a life centered on God and others. It is a life in which I do not depend on myself, but on God: that He knows better, that His will is better than my own and that I cannot make it in this life without His power. I do not compare myself to others, as there will always be someone better or worse than me."

"At first glance, the Pharisee looks like a good and humble person, doing the right thing (Luke 18). He prays, kneels before God, and is grateful. Is it really wrong to be grateful because I do not steal? That I do no harm to others? That I do not use violence to get my way? Is it not better? He attributes all these things to God. [But] his prayer is still only centered on himself. We can show remorse, but the remorse is really only a form of self-pity, for it is only centered on ourselves. “Poor me, look at what’s happening to me.” Deep remorse is concerned with our actions and the state of our hearts: defective and dependent. We are invited to go to a place where we cannot deny reality. Jesus says that He Himself is meek and humble (Matt 11:28). It does not make Him prideful. It is not a denial of reality (truth) or goodness, but a recognition of [total] dependence [on God in all of it].


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BIBLE STUDY =

"shall rise again ] He uses an ambiguous expression as an exercise of her faith. Some think that these words contain no allusion to the immediate restoration of Lazarus, and that Martha understands them rightly. More probably Christ includes the immediate restoration of Lazarus, but she does not venture to do so, and rejects the allusion to the final Resurrection as poor consolation."
"I am the resurrection, and the life ] He draws her from her selfish grief to Himself."

"In what follows, the first part shews how He is the Resurrection, the second how He is the Life. ‘He that believeth in Me, even if he shall have died (physically), shall live (eternally). And every one that liveth (physically) and believeth in Me, shall never die (eternally).’"

BONUS Greek clarification on "ἐμβριμάομαι" from Matthew 9:30=
"And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly charged them (ἐνεβριμήθη αὐτοῖς). The notion is of "coercion springing out of displeasure. The feeling is called out by something seen in another which moves to anger rather than to sorrow"... Saying, See that no man know it. Partly to avoid publicity for himself, partly for their own sake, for even the recital of the Lord's mercies towards us often becomes an occasion of spiritual harm, since it is apt to degenerate into "display" with its attendant evils."
And Mark 1:43=
"The reason for this charge and dismissal lay in the desire of Jesus not to thwart his ministry by awaking the premature violence of his enemies; who, if they should see the leper and hear his story before he had been officially pronounced clean by the priest, might deny either that he had been a leper or had been truly cleansed" ... "It may be that he had incurred this rebuke by coming so near with his defilement to the holy Saviour. Christ thus showed not only his respect for the ordinances of the Jewish Law, but also how hateful sin is to the most holy God."
This all shows strongly that THE ANGER OF JESUS IS ALWAYS HOLY, FOR GOD'S GLORY, AND FOR OUR GOOD.
And the BEST exposition so far=
"...it expresses not sorrow but indignation or severity... What was He angered at? Some translate ‘at His spirit,’ and explain ( α ) that He was indignant at the human emotion which overcame Him: which is out of harmony with all that we know about the human nature of Christ. ([Verse 33] "groaning in himself " [further] shews that ‘in His spirit’ not ‘at His spirit’ is the right translation there. Their sneering scepticism rouses His indignation afresh.]) Others, retaining ‘ in His spirit,’ explain ( β ) that He was indignant ‘at the unbelief of the Jews and perhaps of the sisters:’ but of this there is no hint in the context. Others again, ( γ ) that it was ‘at the sight of the momentary triumph of evil, as death, … which was here shewn under circumstances of the deepest pathos:’ but we nowhere else find the Lord shewing anger at the physical consequences of sin. It seems better to fall back on the contrast pointed out in the last note. He was indignant at seeing the hypocritical and sentimental lamentations of His enemies the Jews mingling with the heartfelt lamentations of His loving friend Mary: hypocrisy ever roused His anger."
THAT IS A CRITICALLY IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION.
Honestly thank You God for showing us all this. Not only do we now understand Christ better-- as feebly as we can as a human!-- but we can also defend His Goodness to others who doubt & even detract. You know our soul feels inexplicably pulled towards apologetics. We grew up in abused & misunderstood religious doctrine & fell prey in adulthood to malevolent twisting of the same. We feel a moral obligation to make restitution for our ignorant yet injurious participation in it. These studies are balm.


"Then said … loved him ] Here, ‘then’ should rather be therefore... Both the verbs here are imperfects; ‘kept saying,’ ‘used to love.’ ...The word for ‘love’ is the more passionate word used in v.3 by the sisters, not the higher word used in v.5 by the Evangelist [referring to Christ]."
Pasting that as it's highly interesting how it deepens the meaning.
"Used to love" used with "φιλέω" in light of death, suggests this= that love could not continue after death, not in its purest definition of "warm, affectionate friendship." The other party is now departed; the φιλέω now mourns its own mutual "death" in the loss? From then on it is inescapably doomed to the past tense. BUT. NOT SO WITH ἀγαπάω??? Because THAT love is ultimately ATTACHED TO GOD??? And it TRANSCENDS DEATH. Not sure if I'm making sense but I wanted to "defend" Christ's perfect Love in light of that "imperfect" verb. He STILL loves Lazarus, EVEN BEYOND DEATH, because HE IS LIFE, AND LOVE, and furthermore even if His humanity as Jesus "cannot" continue in φιλέω towards Lazarus in a literal sense upon death, His DIVINITY AS CHRIST can & does love Lazarus IN ἀγαπάω from His Being where there is ONLY LIFE. In both & either case, JESUS CHRIST LOVES, PERFECTLY. 

"Their reference to the man born blind instead of to the widow’s son, or Jairus’ daughter, has been used as an objection to the truth of this narrative. It is really a strong confirmation of its truth. An inventor would almost certainly have preferred more obvious parallels. But these [scoffers] of course did not believe in those raisings of the dead: they much more naturally refer to a reputed miracle within their own experience. Moreover they are not hinting at raising the dead, but urging that if Jesus could work miracles He ought to have prevented Lazarus from dying."
And they say that ironically, because they DON'T believe He had ANY such power. I'm shocked at the accusation; that sort of mean talk didn't even occur to me.
I wonder how often anti-Christians still talk like this-- they demand arguments & explanations & proof, but already their hearts are hardened against accepting such things EVEN IF they were produced!

"should not have died ] Rather, should not die."
I love how the tense shift actually makes it a callback to verse 26-- and shows that Jesus already did perform such a miracle, in the same mysterious & eternal way He even then was opening the eyes of the blind. But, to those who said "we see," "we are alive"... they actually miss the miracle.
It's all divine paradox, terrible & beautiful as always.

"And Jesus lifted ] The verb (αἴρω) is identical with that translated ‘took away’ in the preceding clause. Both should be translated alike; moreover, ‘and’ should be ‘but’ (δέ). =They lifted therefore the stone . But Jesus lifted His eyes upwards."
There is so much poetry in that.
That "δέ" could also mean on the other hand. It draws a subtle but powerful contrast between the two actions of lifting upwards = man could lift the stone, but without prayer, the dead were not raised; Christ may not remove the stone, but in His prayer-- already answered!-- the dead were promised life?
No human will or effort could raise Lazarus from death. Jesus only had to raise His eyes to God and death was overthrown BY GOD'S POWER.
"Jesus thanks the Father as a public acknowledgment that the Son can do ‘nothing of Himself,’ but that the power which He is about to exhibit is from the Father."

"graveclothes ] The Greek word... means the bandages which kept the sheet and the spices round the body. Nothing is said about the usual spices (19:40) here; and Martha’s remark (v.39) rather implies that there had been no embalming. If Lazarus died of a malignant disease he would be buried as quickly as possible."
That adds heavily to the spiritual symbolism of the miracle, in which Lazarus is a stand-in for those "dead in habitual sin". For such a sin unto death to be malignant is a scary thought; such a sinner would indeed be "buried ASAP" with no usual comforts or honors. There likely would have been be no hope of recovery; the dying sinner would have been ostracized, dehumanized, abandoned to their soul's disease. No one else wants to get infected. No one wants to watch such a gruesomely inevitable death.
That's the most hopeless state. And yet CHRIST RAISED SUCH A ONE. that's hope for ALL of us.
...remember, we WERE such a dead man once. We're proof of the Scripture's truth in our own life, too, one we had lost before Christ came to our tomb and called our name. 


"Lazarus is to be allowed to retire out of the way of harmful excitement and idle curiosity."

"Some of the Jews generally, not of those who saw and believed, went and told the Pharisees; with what intention is not clear, but probably not out of malignity. Perhaps to convince the Pharisees, or to seek an authoritative solution of their own perplexity, or as feeling that the recognised leaders of the people ought to know the whole case. The bad result of their mission has made some too hastily conclude that their intention was bad, and that therefore they could not be included in those who believed."

"It is no longer possible to deny the fact of the signs. Instead of asking themselves what these ‘signs’ must mean, their only thought is how to prevent others from drawing the obvious conclusion. They do not inquire whether He is or is not the Messiah; they look solely to the consequences of admitting that He is."

"The Sanhedrin, especially the Pharisaic section of it, was a national and patriotic body. It was the inheritor and guardian of the Rabbinical theories as to the Messiah. There can have been no class in the nation in which these were so inveterately ingrained, and therefore none that was so little accessible to the teaching of Jesus. It was from first to last unintelligible to them. It seemed to abandon all the national hopes and privileges, and to make it a sin to defend them. If it were successful, it seemed as if it must leave the field open to the Romans."
This feels very relevant to modern times.
...

"In our Scripture today we read this expression, "He whom Thou lovest is sick." We have no right, therefore, to think that Lazarus was sick because he was sinful. Many of the choicest saints on earth have been physically afflicted. We want to emphasize this, because there are many in our day, as there were in Job's day, who imagine that everybody who is sick is living, somehow or other, out of the will of God. We know that everyone who is out of the will of God is not sick. Many of the wicked enjoy physical health. The Word of God in describing the wicked, gives Asaph's statement, "For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Then Asaph cried out, "They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.""
THAT IS EXPLICITLY CONDEMNING THE "PROSPERITY GOSPEL"!!


"Are the good ever sick? The Bible carefully states that a certain man was sick... It was none other than Lazarus. That Lazarus was a good man, none of us doubt. He was a believer, a disciple of our Lord, and a follower who delighted in having the Master in his home. What is our conclusion? Even this, that sickness is no [necessary] sign of God's displeasure... Not only the good, but the, "beloved of the Lord" may be sick. Sickness then, is not always... a matter of Divine chastisement... sickness is usually caused by natural sequences. In the last analysis sickness is from sin, but not necessarily from the sin of the one who is sick. We are living in a world under the curse. The ravages of sin are everywhere. And the best of saints are partakers of that curse in its present effects."
"Sickness, in its first cause, is due to sin. However, it was the sin of Adam which produced the curse, and brought Adam's sons under the blow. We are living in a world which is cursed with thorns and thistles. All nature is subject to sorrow and bondage, because of the fact of sin. Every hot wind, and every blasting frost; every hailstone, and everything else, in nature, that destroys and devastates is the result of sin and its curse. The thorns and the thistles are all in the world because sin is in the world. This, however, does not mean that everyone who is sick is personally living in sin. Even the redeemed are subject to the effects of Adam's sin and of the sins of others about them, so long as they are in the flesh."
...This is very heavy to think upon. But it's full of riches.
It ALSO vitally distinguishes the "curse" from "personal guilt," as it were. Yes we are all sinners & prone to sin. BUT NOT EVERYTHING WE SUFFER IS A DIRECT & POINTED PENALTY FOR OUR PERSONAL SIN. That's very hard for me to grasp, let alone accept, but Job still witnesses to the truth, as does every Saint that ever suffered & died from consumption or heart attack or leprosy or the like.
...
THAT LAST LINE IS HARROWING THOUGH. "and the sins of others." It's a ripple effect. That's SCARY to soberly consider but it's UNQUESTIONABLY TRUE.

EVEN SO,
"Sickness may [indeed] be a chastisement. We read that the sick are to call for the elders of the Church that they may be anointed with oil. Then, God says, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." In the same chapter, we are told that we should confess our faults one to another, and pray one for another that we may be healed. For this cause we realize that sickness may come as a chastisement from on high. "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Of course, we still cling to the Word of God that the "Prayer of faith shall save the sick." This prayer of faith however, must be God-given, and when it is not the will of God to heal us of our physical infirmities, He will give us grace to bear them."
...


"God does not deal with the sick in generalities. He is specific. He knows the sickness of the many, but He emphasizes the fact of the sickness of the one. God knew just where he lived. Knew his house. Knew his environment. Not only that, He knew his name. His name was Lazarus. God knew his sisters; He knew them as Mary and as Martha. God is not unaware of us personally. He knoweth His sheep by name and He leadeth them forth. When we are sick upon our bed, let us not think that God has forgotten us, or that He is unmindful of our pain. He knows it all. He knows everything about us. There is not a word on our tongue, a sigh in our heart, a groaning in our flesh, that He does not know."
THAT IS HOW WE ARE TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS CHRIST LOVES US.

"Beloved, let us never again be guilty of that unseemly challenge against our Lord that He does not love us because we suffer. We often suffer because He does love us."
...I need to engrave that on my very heart.
Deep down I don't doubt it. But... up here in the body I do.
There's such a paradoxical ambivalence. Why? When did that change? I used to be so convinced-- just look at Laurie. But that's probably why she's been so unstable since CNC. We've become afraid of suffering, suddenly. We've forgotten that it can be-- and is-- still under the power of Love.
...
I think that's a key realization. CNC redefined suffering AND love for us, with demonic horrors & falsehoods. We were just as guilty as TBAS in contributing to that hell, too, what with our moral cowardice and rampant gluttonous self-annihilation.
...


""This sickness is not unto death." It was not unto death because it was unto life out of death, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. The Lord Jesus Christ permitted Lazarus to die, allowed the great sorrow to come upon the sisters of Lazarus, because God would receive glory, and He Himself would be glorified by the resurrection of Lazarus."
...I'm wondering, with aching hope, if this can be applied to ALL the deaths in my life, or if that is stupidly presumptuous. I just... the thought that, even when grandma died, and its awful circumstances, God was allowing and permitting because SOMEHOW it WOULD STILL glorify God-- by what He would do with it. ...Maybe that's the key. Death by herself doesn't glorify God in any other distant way than proving the final effects of sin's curse & God’s holiness in stark contrast. But... when we Christians meet Death with faith in God... even if the circumstances of death are hideous and haunting... can He still glorify Himself thereby? If He permitted it, surely He had His Good Purposes? If He allowed it, surely He had worked it into His greater benevolent plan? Should the strongest focus actually be on JESUS in this, just like with Lazarus-- on He Who IS Life, and Resurrection, even in this very tragedy?
How do I properly do that? Even in all the deaths I've suffered, the direct results of sin's terminal malignance, how do I STILL make room for Christ to be glorified despite it all? Can I? Should I? I WANT to see Life triumph over death in such assumedly final fatalities. I want Jesus to do the impossible and call my putrefied psyche out of the stone-cold sepulchre, regardless of the frozen ground, regardless of the sloughed-off skin. Do I have the right to bank upon His compassion? Do I have the gall to ask for a healing in the first place, wretch that I am? Forget four days; it's been years-- there might not be anything left to resurrect, this death by minefield, this electrocuted dust, this charred and blackened ash of bone.
And yet I'm asking.
I... I can't forget what I just read. I can't.
Lord, the... the one You love is sick.
Please. Don't let me die like this.
...
...It's always present tense.
I talk about trauma history until the cows go to the slaughterhouse but then I speak of death as NOW. Not then, not before, but staring into my eyes, currently, inescapably.

...I've gotta keep reading. What does God have to say to me next.

" "Therefore... He abode two days still in the same place." How illuminating is this expression. He knew Lazarus was sick; knew he was dead or about to die, and yet two days longer He stayed where He was. He did not hurry to Bethany; He purposefully stayed away. Beloved, when we are in the will of God, following in His footsteps, let us not seek by our prayers and cries, to change the will of God. He is working in our behalf. Has He not said, "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose"? If Jesus hears us crying, and yet He does not come, but abides where He is, let us patiently tarry until the day of His Coming. [Remember,] the disciples were in the midst of the sea, tossing with the waves, for the wind was contrary. All during the night hours they pulled at the oars. Jesus did not come to them, however, until they were in the midst of the sea. Then in the fourth watch of the night, He came-- walking upon the waves."
Sooner or later, HE WILL COME. That is the staggering bottom line. He NEVER abandons us. And remember-- even when He isn't with us "physically," as in those two examples, His Heart is ALWAYS with us; His Thoughts are ALWAYS on us; He Lives TO make intercession for us AND He is ALWAYS working things out FOR OUR GOOD, WITH LOVE...even if He stays "at a distance" to do it.
...Remember the Julie days. Remember we were convinced God had abandoned us utterly-- and we would have deserved it! But look what He did after all those years!! Look what His tarrying enabled to occur-- and all by His knowledge & plans!! He ALLOWED us to die... so that He could be glorified beyond measure in resurrecting us from the grave.
We HAD TO DIE FIRST, you realize.
...maybe that's the key even now. even with all that pain we typed about. Somehow we're overlooking the fact that THE DEATH ITSELF IS ESSENTIAL TO THE GLORIFICATION. It doesn't exempt us from hope-- it is rather, against all odds, the very grounds for it.
...


"Our Lord Jesus Christ has taken away the sting of death. Death to the believer is an exit, but it is also an entrance... It is the gateway to the presence of Christ."
...does that still apply to internal deaths? psychological, emotional, even spiritual deaths, in this physical life? God can't have cut us off from the loom already, can He? No, it's impossible-- it must be-- the second death is separation from God entirely, and oh Lord, even now in this ragged excuse for a life we haven't been so cursed.


"Had He been there, Martha and Mary's tears and prayers could have prevailed upon Him to have healed Lazarus before He died. However, He was glad, not for the sake of Martha and Mary alone, but for the sake of His own disciples, that He was not there, to the intent that they might believe on Him. Through the resurrection of Lazarus they received an enlarged vision of Christ's power over death."
WHY DO YOU KEEP FORGETTING THIS.
Do you realize this? That maybe "God feels far away" because your hysterical sobbing shatters His Heart, but He knows your faith needs to be deepened even like your wounds? You beg for healing but even as you do, you doubt. If He comes near, will His nearness change that? Could you even cherish His Presence in your crazed state?
He lets it continue, though, doesn't He? He lets the feverish franticism burn out into the desperate darkness that drags you to the altar, weeping and reaching out into the empty silent air. You get to a point where you give up. Hours, days, years later, you lie back on your bed of pain and you surrender. You hand it over.
And isn't that the first step towards the miracle?
Isn't that exactly when He turns and starts His journey towards your house?
...


"Jesus tarried the longer, until everybody knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lazarus was dead. It took the same Divine power to raise the daughter of Jairus, and the son of the widow of Nain, as it took to raise Lazarus because all were dead. It takes the same power to give new life to the man who has for many years lived in trespasses and in sins, as it does to give new life to the little child who has but recently come to the years of responsibility. All are equally sinners, however, all have not sinned equally. The three were alike dead, but the stench of death was more manifest in Lazarus than in the others."
And yet Christ raised Him too.
There it is, kiddo. There's your hope, there's that consolation you've been looking for in someone else's words. Hold on to it. You're not a hopeless case, not even in those respects, and you never will be-- if He decides to resurrect you, you're resurrected. Not even hell itself can stop Him.

"Let us never again think of the resurrection as a great final consummation which will take place through the natural unfolding of events. The resurrection IS Christ. It is not an "it," but a living, vitalizing, energizing life-giving Lord."


"Behold, how He loved us. He loved us enough to go down into death that He might break the chains of death."
Dare you enlarge that definition of death to include all the sins He carried to Calvary in your place?

"Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?"
...I think of what I wrote earlier. "Do I have any right to hope for God using this nightmare for His glory somehow?" Well... do you believe He can? Do you believe He would if He could-- that He would conquer death all over again in that instance by sheer virtue of Who He Is? Do you believe this? Do you believe in Him-- as the Christ, as the Son of God, as the Creator and Cause of Life Himself? Where have you set the limits on your faith? Are you afraid of how death smells on you? Do you really think that can stop Love?
...

"He came forth, yet he could not come forth, for he was dead.
He came forth, yet he could not come forth, for he was both dead, and bound hand and foot with graveclothes.
He came forth and yet he could not come forth for he was dead, and bound, and his face was tied with a napkin. He had neither life nor power of locomotion, or of sight, and yet he came forth.
We stand at the grave of untold millions and we say, "They cannot come forth, they are dead. Their bodies are decayed; scattered to the four winds of the earth. They have been taken up in vegetation. There is nothing left of their corpses, but some petrified bones, or perhaps nothing at all left to the human eye. They cannot come forth"-- and yet, "the dead... shall rise." Thank God that Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life."
And there it is.
There are my exact protests echoed back to me, then so simply and spectacularly nullified.


"The resurrection of Christ is the usual message of Easter. However, we must remember that indissolubly linked with the resurrection of our Lord is the resurrection of all of His saints. It is also well for us to remember that sickness and death are also linked with the resurrection. Sickness and the collapse of the physical man leads to death, and the resurrection is the glorious conquest over the reign of death."

"Where man has never dared to make battle, the Son of Man, alone, entered, and grappled with the monster who is man's greatest and last enemy. Stealthily the deathless Son of God pressed on His way to Calvary. He voluntarily gave up His life, He purposely yielded up His spirit, bowed His head and died, that He might conquer death. Jesus Christ not only died, but they laid His body in a sealed tomb. He Himself descended in hell. He went down where death reigned and where it holds its ghoul-like sway. He entered without fear, met sin on the Cross, broke its reign; met death and hell in its own realm, and vanquished them both. Here is the graphic way in which the Book of books describes the Risen Christ. John, on the Isle called Patmos, received visions of coming events. The Lord said to John, "Fear not; I am the First and the Last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Bless God. Christ went down to hell, and came back with its keys in His hand. Now we can cry, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is Thy victory?""
Do you really think Christ can't reach you in that infernal abyss where you fell?
You give death too much credit. Christ has the keys, kiddo.

"Christ said, "This sickness is... for the glory of God." We stand on the circumference of a marvelous thought. God can cause the wreckage of sin, and even the reign of death, to praise Him. Would that we might be able to see in many of our own sorrows the Lord working out for Himself, and incidentally for us, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Had Martha and Mary known that God was working for His glory and for theirs, they might have sung where they wept."
That's it, that's exactly what my poor heart needed to hear tonight.
My head is spinning. I feel an actual glimmer of hope somewhere.

I'm exhausted. God be glorified. Thank You for this. Amen.