Glimpses of Grace #2

On those days when what I believe about God and Jesus and heaven and hell and what He’s said and what He’s done seem almost too fantastic to believe - I go back to one solid fact.

Jesus did not stay dead.

His physical body came out of the grave and people saw him and ate with him and touched him and talked with him. 

No one else has ever done that.

I know he's not physically here now for me to see and eat with and touch and talk to. He went up into the clouds while his disciples looked on and was taken up into heaven. He then sent His Spirit to live in us. I know that sounds fantastic to believe too - but if you have done the hard part of coming alive again after being dead and buried 3 days, to believe an ascension is nothing.

Because:

       I’ve buried some people I love. My dad. My mom. My brother. My granddaughter. 

My dad was the first of those closest to me to die, and his unexpected death was such a sadness. At the risk of sounding a little crazy, during those first days after my dad's death, in that new, deep, and confusing sea of grief, I remember having flickers of desperate hoping - even after he was buried - that maybe, just maybe...he’s not really dead?

But dead and buried is dead and buried. You don’t come back to this earth from that.

But Jesus did not stay dead. He came back to this earth from that. 

I love these lyrics from Andrew Peterson’s song "His Heart Beats" describing Jesus' physical body coming back to life.

"His heart beats, His blood begins to flow

Waking up what was dead a moment ago

And His heart beats, now everything is changed

‘Cause the blood that brought us peace with God

Is racing through His veins

And His heart beats

His heart beats..."

  

If somebody rises from the dead - and Jesus did - then there is a power in them/surrounding them/about them that is more powerful than anything ever. 

If someone is that powerful and that amazing, I want to know all I can know about them. Why would I not believe everything somebody who rose from the dead said? 

So, on my days when doubts want to dominate, I remind myself of this historical fact. 

       Jesus did not stay dead.

He proved by this one act that he is who he said he is.

I'm staking my life on that.

Why Glimpses of Grace series

Glimpses of Grace #1

For weeks now, I've had the desire to write down some thoughts regarding what I believe about God - for myself, for my family, and for the world. 

This desire has been fueled by a couple of things.

First, from September 2017-May 2018, I was studying and teaching the book of Romans.

It has changed me. 

Although I've been a born again believer since I was 9 years old, I feel like I'm just now getting a glimpse of what it means to know the grace of God to me. I want to talk about that glimpse - about that grace.

A story I read days after I purposed to blog about my faith described what I sensed stirring in me. I read about a conversion experience a teenager had while he worked the graveyard shift in a Kraft Cheese factory. He wrote:

     "...what happened that night in the factory was so real that I had to tell someone. I simply couldn't NOT talk about it." (from The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken)

So, my desire to talk is present, but what does that "telling" look like? A Francis Bacon quote about writing untangling thoughts came to mind.

                        "Reading maketh a full man; 

                            conference a ready man; 

                               and writing an exact man."

I have found that thinking/writing, rethinking/rewriting makes me focus/refocus like nothing else. Writing is an effective way for me to untangle and tell my thoughts.

Now, having said that, I enter this God/grace adventure with a bit of a weight, knowing that I don't know everything, that I'm tackling the subject of the ages, that I have no degree but an appropriately labeled BS in Biology, and I'm subjecting myself to the potential criticism of literally a world of people. 

But if I am staking my life and death on some truths about God that affect my soul (and yours) both now and eternally, how can I not want to talk about that? 

It's the question of life, isn't it?

So, for at least the foreseeable future, Lord willing, I'll be here on Thursdays to talk about God and grace, what I believe and why, and the work, joy and struggle it all is most every day.

 I hope you join me.