Why I Need The Resurrection

 It's Easter. All over the world, people are celebrating the arrival of Spring and the hope of new life. Churches are holding services to remember the rising of Jesus Christ from the dead. I've heard the story all my life of how He came to live a sinless life and then died for the sins of mankind so that we'd have eternal hope. But somehow, over the last few years, the Easter story is taking on new meaning for me. 

 Because I'm realizing that the resurrection wasn't just for a one-time act of triumph over eternal destruction and sin but that God is still in the resurrecting business today. My resurrection didn't just happen when I accepted Christ's offer of eternal life...I still need a resurrection today! And will tomorrow...and the day after that...and so on. Until I one day reach my glorified state in Heaven, I will constantly be needing to have new life bred into the dead places of my heart. There are still empty and dark spaces where His love has not yet been allowed to enter and I need His promise of renewal more than ever. I feel the deep effectings of such a broken condition and desire to have them changed by the transforming and redeeming hands of God. I am in the winter season, waiting for the signs of a spiritual spring. But as I look to His ultimate victory on the cross, I see that I have no reason to despair that I am not as far along in my transformation as I would perhaps like. He who began a good work will complete what He started. This is what the message of Easter is and why it matters so much. As a quote I read recently states, 

 "The resurrection of Christ means everything sad is going to come untrue, and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost."

As the flower bulbs burst forth from the cold, dark earth - as I am reminded that He is alive and will be forever - as I greet gladly the arrival of spring and its promise - I ask God to bring new life to my soul. I ask Him to turn all of the messy places into a beautiful garden filled with the scents and colors of His love. I ask Him to fulfill His promise in that He, the resurrected King, can and will resurrect me.