Resurrection life... today

Jesus called in a loud voice "Lazarus, come out!"
​(John 11:43)

​One of the the things I love as I read the Bible is that I know that the miracles of Jesus that happened 2000 years ago still happen today in the 21st century.

When I read of the feeding of the five thousand men plus women and children, I have no problem believing this, because I, myself, have witnessed miracles that defy natural laws.
When I read of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law who had a fever, it has a ring of authenticity about it. Have not many of us witnessed many sick people being healed, and indeed been physically healed ourselves?

Reading of demons being cast out by Jesus out 2000 years ago is thrilling; and equally thrilling is the fact that we have seen it with our own eyes and I was on the receiving end of deliverance four decades ago and have lived in the freedom that that has brought ever since.

​However, there is one kind of miracle that I have not personally witnessed - someone being raised from the dead. That used to bother me a bit......until last week.

On Thursday morning, I was taking our usual chapel service in Teen Challenge London. There were a dozen or so men there. We were singing the chorus ‘My God is faithful, my God is truthful’. When we came to the words ‘My God is power’, suddenly, I didn’t just know it in my head that ‘my God is power’, I could feel it rising up inside me. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, such was the knowledge and certainty of it.

It was then, as I was speaking to the men about the power of God that I looked at them and, suddenly, I realised that I actually had seen people raised from the dead.  Why had I not realised this before? I saw them every day!!  There, standing right in front of me, was a group of men who had been raised by the power of God, from spiritual death.  Many of these men have  been in prison, all have had life controlling issues....and every one of them have been as dead spiritually as Lazarus was physically.  And now, here they were, standing in front of me singing ‘My God is power, my God is glory, my God is ruler over all that is’. 

Lazarus was raised from physical death, but there came a day when he died again. Those who are raised from the dead spiritually will never die again but have ‘abundant life’ now and eternal life in heaven. 

 But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:23)

Don’t you think that’s a much greater miracle? 

So, the next time anyone asks you if you have seen someone raised from the dead, you can say, “Well, actually...”
​
Pauline Anderson