We often carry the burden of many dead things that we cannot change. These things we have no control over, but they have taken complete control of us.
As we approach Holy Week when we honor the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Christians world wide remember the sacrifice our Lord made on our behalf. We remember the love that took Christ to the cross. We remember how he loved us enough to leave the glory of heaven and take on human flesh in order to redeem sinful man to a holy and loving God.
This love left the perfection and beauty of the heavenly realm to come into an evil world where the adversary (Satan) rules and reigns. He came to save the very people who would despise and reject him and ultimately sentence him to death. What a perfect and incomprehensible love this is! No one but a holy and perfect and loving God could ever accomplish what Jesus did for us on the cross. Jesus did. this over 2000 years ago, yet the truth of His salvation for this world has never been obliterated! No matter how rulers and regimes have tried to nullify the gospel, the truth of God’s salvation has traveled the globe.
Yet, as we celebrate this Easter season, we have to remember that before there was a resurrection, there had to be a grave.
There had to be a death to put into that grave. Jesus endured a bloody, gory, gruesome death. He was beaten and bleeding until he was unrecognizable, nails piercing through his flesh and bone. He was ridiculed and tortured, he agonized, and then he was crucified.
Just as many were appalled at You – his appearance was so disfigured that He did not look like a man and his form did not resemble a human being.
Isaiah 52:14 (CSB)
The scripture says Jesus’s dead body was put into a tomb. A tomb is another word for grave. Dead things get put in a grave. Things that no longer have life enter into a grave. A grave is a dark place, suffocating and void of energy. Nothing lives there. Jesus’ dead body went into the grave, and man’s sin and all its consequences was buried with him. It took a bloody, gruesome cross and the empty dark grave to redeem us from an eternal separation from the Love of God.
The darkness and emptiness of the grave would not remain, for a remarkable resurrection followed Jesus’ death! He arose from the dead and lives today! Jesus took all the dead things that this world has to offer and buried it forever. If you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you can exchange your dead things and leave them in the grave and become resurrected to a new life.
As we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection this week, what dead things do you need to leave in the grave? Perhaps it’s rejection, betrayal or hurt. Maybe it’s the consequences of a bad decision you made or was made for you. Maybe it’s loneliness and feeling that you will never find a spouse? Could it be the death of a loved one and the regrets that followed that keep you stuck? We often carry the burden of many dead things that we cannot change. These things we have no control over, but they have taken complete control of us.
I want to challenge you to let the dead things go once and for all! Bury them in that grave! Ask Jesus to show you how to accept his forgiveness for the people that have hurt you, if that’s what’s needed. Ask the Lord to help you to heal from the pain that you have endured in this life. My friends it’s time for a resurrection to new life. If we want to experience the freedom that we have because Jesus died on the cross, then we’ve got to leave the dead things in the grave.
We are alive in Christ. He died to set us free! So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed! (John 8:36). In Him we have conquered death and the dead things life has to offer.
If you’re still holding on dead things, it’s time to reach for RESURRECTED Life! Dead things go and stay in the grave. Time to rise up and walk in Freedom ! Amen.
Be blessed,
Blessed & Broken 