--JESUS: The Resurrection and the Life~~
--[In the Grip of Grace/ Max Lucado]

--"He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Ephesians 2:4-5). God's solution is not to preserve the dead--but to raise the dead. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

What Jesus did with Lazarus, He is willing to do with us. Which is good to know, for what Martha said about Lazarus can be said about us, "Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days" (John 11:39). Martha was speaking for us all. The human race is dead, and there is a bad smell. We have been dead and buried a long time. We don't need someone to fix us up; we need Someone to raise us up. In the muck and mire of what we call life, there is death, and we have been in it so long we've grown accustomed to the stink. But Christ hasn't.

And Christ can't stand the thought of His kids rotting in the cemetery. So He comes in and calls us out. We are the corpse, and He is the corpse-called. We are the dead, and He is the dead-raiser. Our task is not to get up but to admit we are dead. The only ones who remain in the grave are the ones who don't think they are there.
We were 'once dead in our sins and trespasses, but now we have be raised together in Christ Jesus.' Praise the Lord!

<http://youtu.be/25wG9C0s1kA>
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