He is Risen!

This is an article recently written by Cru's US Campus ministry's executive director, Mark Gauthier. Some of you may remember Mark from Encounter 2012!




Easter is my favorite day of the whole year!  
 
Yes I know, Easter was back in April and here we are in May, well on our way to Pentecost.  But one of the things I’m learning is that how you understand this one day, Resurrection Day, shapes how you live the other 364.
 
Here’s what I mean. After Pentecost happened and all those people heard and believed because of Peter’s sermon, what was it like when they gathered in the synagogue?  I imagine someone would stand up and say, “I believe Jesus rose from the dead” and that would launch a whole conversation about what it meant for their individual lives.   
 
Today we have the whole Bible to talk about. All the earliest believers had was their witness to the resurrection of Christ. They gathered there, standing on faith, telling the story, remembering the events of that day and the days that followed.
 
I have to fight to let this truth sink in: Jesus rose again. He’s alive! He lives on to heal, to save, to release captives, and to open eyes. When we get bogged down in our daily lives, it is all too easy to become numb to this reality. But if we minimize or lose sight of the resurrection, we miss out on so much!
 
Sometimes I wonder if we don’t share our faith because we don’t think we have anything to share.  When we first know Jesus, we are still amazed at the reality that Christ was raised from the dead for us. We can’t help but share what we just learned and experienced. But what happens if we aren’t bringing this truth into focus? Our passion wanes and our faith and motivation become weak.    
 
That’s why Paul reminds the early churches over and over to do life together, but also to remind one another who gives us life together. We are to help each other dial in to the fact that it’s all about Jesus.  And that He’s really here.
 
"I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” (really, all of 1 Corinthians 15 )

“…be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18-20)
 
Easter is incredible because it is the defining event for us as His followers.  Jesus is alive, and He is with us in the person of the Holy Spirit!  We are never alone.  He is with us to comfort, guide, and transform us.  And as Romans 8:31-32 asks us: “if God did not spare even his own son but gave him up for us all, how will God not also give us all things in Christ Jesus?”

God gave Jesus for us, Jesus rose from the dead, He is alive, and therefore in Him we find our sufficiency for everything.
 
He is risen! How will you live that reality today?

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