Christ's resurrection is the pinnacle of history. It was monumental because it proved once for all that Jesus had complete victory on the cross. Paul records at the end of Romans 4, "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" ( Romans 4:25 ). Since he is alive and seated in heaven we can rest assured that we are justified on his behalf before God. His sacrifice for sin restored us to a state where it is just as if we had never sinned in the first place. His death and resurrection completely outdid and undone everything sin ruined.
"For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living" ( Romans 14:9 ). We live for Christ and we die for Christ, and everything in between belongs to him. We are not our own anymore ( Romans 14:8 ). We have been called into a wonderful fellowship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
This is why Christ came to earth as a ransom for many, to purchase our freedom so that He could be Lord of both the living and dead. The beautiful thing about this, is when we were dead, Christ made us alive. Colossians says, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" ( Colossians 2:13-15 ). Now we are alive to live for him in the freedom and victory that was won so long ago.
We know that we will eventually experience physical death, but since Jesus is both Lord of the living and the dead, we know that He is able to make us alive again to live eternally with Him in paradise. What an awesome truth to understand. We live for the Lord, we die in the Lord and throughout our entire lives we belong to Him. Today, I pray that you understand this amazing truth and start living it out in your daily walk. Remember that everything you do can be done as worship to the Lord. He is our life and our hope. May you be blessed abundantly with all wisdom and understanding, amen.
