When Resurrection Means Belief

I’ve been criticised for being too soft and emotional, and I know women pastors who’ve been criticised for being too firm, too hard, and I wonder, where does this criticism come from. It actually doesn’t matter where it comes from. But there is a perception that any and all of us are unbalanced. Of course, that’s got to be true.

But it’s not how God sees us, and isn’t that an important distinction?

When we see ourselves lowly, others, at the very same time, are seeing something else; some people are seeing us as God sees us. We don’t always find out. They don’t always speak up. It’s good when they do.

Then, we could just believe God, who thinks we’re tremendous. Without doing anything as far as a good work is concerned, God sees us through the lens of His Son.

We could focus on the naysayers or we could focus on God’s wonderful redemption in His Son, and on those genuine Christians (and others) who are for us.

We know the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, don’t we?

If we believe the Christ died on the cross and rose again in a manner of life that He has now promised to us, we have an obligation to live that life, now first and foremost, before it becomes an eternal reality.

Resurrection requires belief. We must believe Jesus was resurrected before we can partake. And we must believe His resurrection is available to us. There, in that belief place, is the power for resurrection. We make it happen, because it has already happened; Jesus, our Precedent.

We must believe before we can be resurrected. Our belief must mount up on the ride of faith to take us all the way to the resurrection circumstance in our situation.

That is, to access the infinite power of the Holy Spirit which resurrects our hope, we must believe God is able and will do it.