Continued from previous post...
My Understanding: As soon as I began to read this passage of scripture, the Lord Jesus put within my heart the message that he wanted me to receive and to share from it today. He began by revealing to me that, not only is He risen from the dead, but when he transforms a life by his grace, he takes us from death to life and we, too, are risen from the dead. So, with that I believe the Lord would have me to look at this passage in light of how his grace affords us the opportunity to not only die with him, but to rise with him to newness of life to no longer be found dead in our sins, but to be alive in Christ Jesus!
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!
When I read that, the Lord immediately gave me a picture in my mind of what his grace means in our hearts and lives. We are no longer among the dead, so we should not look for ourselves among the dead spiritually who are still caught in their sin. Instead, we should realize that we are risen and we are no longer dead. I think that a lot of times believers in Jesus Christ live defeated Christian lives and continually fall back into sin because they do not truly comprehend what Jesus Christ did for us when he died on the cross for our sins and when he was risen conquering sin, death, hell and Satan. He already won the battle!
I remember a time in my life when that realization finally hit me. I grew up in an abusive home environment, so I approached temptation to sin much the same way I approached threats of abuse, with my arms crossed across my face hoping I would not get hit again. I also grew up believing in God and Jesus and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was with me comforting, encouraging, healing, giving me hope, direction, etc. I knew that God loved me and that he was the opposite of my earthly father. Yet, in my mind I had subconsciously determined that God was somehow limited and not all powerful, though if you were to ask me I would claim for certain that he was all powerful. My actions spoke louder than my words, though. My actions said, If God is all powerful, then why did he allow me to be abused? Why did he not rescue me? My only answer in my mind could be that if God is love, then he must be limited, otherwise he would not have allowed this.
So, I often lived in defeat because I approached sins temptation with my arms crossed in front of me hoping to not get hit again and feeling helpless. And I approached sins temptation feeling as though there was a question as to who would win this battle. Those misconceptions in my mind thus resulted in me riding a spiritual roller coaster with sin, confession, repentance, sin, confession, repentance, etc. Then, one day God opened my eyes to realize that if he paid the price for my sin so that I could be free, and if he truly conquered sin, hell, Satan and death, then the battle was already won! All I had to do was appropriate into my life what had already been accomplished for me on the cross and via Jesus resurrection. God also brought me to the realization that he is completely sovereign in my life and, although he does not approve of sin, he allows people to sin against us, and part of that is his process of molding us and making us to be the people of God he wants us to be. When I yielded to Gods sovereignty in my life and I permitted him to bring into my life whatever he chose in order to melt me, mold me, fill me and use me, then that, as well, freed me to obey him in all things in my life and to no longer allow sin to overtake me.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things
When God does a miracle of his grace in our lives and he brings us back from the tomb, i.e. he lifts us out of the pit of sin by his grace, we need to run and tell these things to the other people in our lives as a testimony of Gods grace so that other people can know Gods grace in their lives and in their life circumstances. I know there are other people out there who have sinned, who have fallen into the pit, and who are struggling with sin habits, and I know the way out of the pit. If I see someone inside a burning building, would I not rush in to save him or her, or at least call out to him to get out? If I see someone drowning, would I not rush out to save her or at least call for a lifeguard to go in after her? If I see someone start to walk out in front of a moving vehicle, would I not rush out to push or pull him to safety or at least call out to warn him? We, as believers in Jesus Christ, have been given a lifeline to pull us out of the pit out of the grave and we have risen! We need to tell others that they, too, can rise from the pit and the grave and they can live in freedom!
But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Not everyone is going to accept our message. Not everyone is going to believe that we have been raised from the dead or that they can have complete victory over sin because of what Jesus did for them on the cross and because of him rising from the dead as conqueror over sin. Yet, in the Bible, God instructed his messengers, Go now to your countrymen in exile and speak to them. Say to them, This is what the Sovereign LORD says, whether they listen or fail to listen (Ezek. 3:11). Our responsibility is to go and to tell. It is the Holy Spirits responsibility to convict. So, dont get discouraged if no one seems to be listening. Keep obeying God in doing what he tells you to do. Keep telling them that He is risen!
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb
Although some will not listen and will not believe our message, there will be those who will receive the message with gladness. We may not even know who all those people are, either. So, we should not be discouraged if the message goes without response even here, because we dont know what lives are being touched, of which they may never let us know how our testimony ministered to their lives. So, keep on sharing the message of the gospel and your testimony of how God lifted you out of the grave and how he raised you from the dead because many people need to hear this message of hope, healing, grace and deliverance.
As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.
When God sets us free by his grace from sin and sins hold on our lives, and we are enthusiastic and are excited about what he has done and we begin to share with others that message of hope and healing, Satan is going to fill our hearts and minds with doubts and fears. Lifes circumstances may even hit us hard. People will reject our message and may even reject us because we have gone off the deep end, or whatever they may determine about us. And, we may get discouraged because things didnt turn out like we thought they were going to. So, we become downcast and we dont see (recognize) the presence of Jesus with us through it all. Peter experienced that when he was walking on the water but he took his eyes off of Jesus and began looking at his circumstances instead and so he began to drown, yet he called out to Jesus to save him, which was the appropriate response. So, when discouragement begins to set in due to the realities of life around us, call out to Jesus.
How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
I believe that often we fall back into sin or the same sin patterns over and over again because we dont get it. We are foolish and slow of heart to believe all that Jesus spoke to us and did for us in dying on the cross for our sins. He conquered death and sin so that sin will no longer be our master. So, why do we continue to submit to it as though Jesus had not died and risen and conquered sin? Why do we live as though there is still a question of who is going to win this battle? Jesus already won the victory for us. All we have to do is to own it in our own lives by how we respond to sin. Are we going to keep responding as a battered wife or an abused child with our arms across our face hoping to not get hit again? Or are we going to put on that spiritual armor that God has so graciously supplied us (see Eph. 6:10-20) with to win this battle against evil? The choice is ours. We can continue to live in defeat and act as though we are still dead in our sins or we can choose to take what has already been done for us and make it ours. We have to own it! We have to believe it!! And, we have to appropriate (seize; adopt; grab; snatch; take advantage of it) it!!!
Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.
After their walk and talk along the road where the disciples still did not recognize Jesus, they invited him to stay with them. As they sat down to eat, Jesus did something they had no doubt seen him do many times before. He broke the bread, gave thanks, and then he gave them something to eat. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Why it took this experience for their eyes to be opened, I dont know, but God divinely intervened at this point and he opened their eyes.
What I saw here is that they were first of all willing and receptive to talk with him while they were on their way. We need to, as well, be listening to our Lord and we need to be receptive to what he has to say to us while we are on this path called life. Secondly, they invited him to come home with them. Jesus does not force himself upon us. We have to invite him into our lives and into our life circumstances if we want him to reveal to us his truth. He is not going to hit us over the head with the truth if we are choosing to walk in stubborn rebellion and to go our own way, most likely, though a time may come when that will be the only thing that gets through to his children (His church; His Body; His bride). Normally He waits patiently for us to take in what he says and to see if we are really listening and if we are willing to invite him into our daily lives before he reveals himself to us.
I had such an encounter with the Lord some years ago when he opened my eyes and I recognized him, too. I had been struggling with sin on and off in my life and had just gone through a time of personal revival and was still praying through things in my life. I asked the Lord if there was anyone I still had not forgiven, if he would give me a name. The name he gave me was Jesus. Then, my eyes were opened. I realized that I had blamed Jesus for not protecting me and not rescuing me, not only from the abuse of my father, but from many subsequent abusive situations in my life. And, I was holding unforgiveness in my heart towards him. I had to confess to him my unforgiveness, even though he had done nothing wrong, I had to forgive him, and then I had to do the opposite of what I had been doing. I came to the realization that I needed to accept Gods sovereignty in my life, i.e. I had to allow him to bring into my life whatever he wanted to bring into my life and for me to then choose to not yield to my circumstances by responding with old patterns of sin, but rather to trust the Lord completely with my circumstances, to believe that he was absolutely all powerful and all knowing and in complete control of my life situations and to say Yes to Jesus and accept that he knows what I need. Instead of retreating, I chose to move forward in his grace and to allow him to work his changes in my heart through those life situations instead of to yield to the situations themselves. I chose then to keep my eyes on Jesus, not perfectly mind you, but to keep moving forward and to no longer go back to my old way of life. I shut the door on that old life never to reopen it! Love lifted me! Praise Jesus!!
