Praised By the Raised

There are things that only God can personally teach us. They come from our personal journey of fellowship with Him and the growth that comes from our personal obedience. I wonder if the average Christian understands just how much God wants us to know Him and wants us to fully experience the great work and life of resurrection that began in our lives through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our passage of devotion in its context reveals that the Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers concerning this very thing. His prayer was that they would come to a personal experiential knowledge of what God has done for and in them because of their faith in Christ. Growing as a Christian was never designed by God to be just the ability to obtain facts about the Bible, but that these things would become the light into an experiential awareness of a new life that has opened up to those who are joined to Him through Christ. It is a degree above what men can teach us. Some things are reserved only for the Holy Spirit to show each of us in the details of His purpose for our lives.

The resurrection is real, not just because it was a historical fact to be believed, but it was also to become an experiential fact of spiritual growth in us. One of the most debilitating lies that has crippled many Christians from experiencing our fullest potential is that we believe that we are ordinary. That we have to live within the status quo or ordinary limits of the world and the flesh in this life. We can’t grow. We can’t change. We can’t succeed. We must accept a level of ordinary mediocrity even though God has said that the only limit we have is His will for our lives. Many of us have understood that the life of Christ carries with it the expectation of God that we strive and thrive in a life of upward mobility that is designed for His glory in and through His redeemed children. We are described as, “those who first trusted Christ should be to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:12), and with our eyes opened, “…you may know the hope of His calling and the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). The privilege of His glory upon our lives cannot be manifested by our abilities alone. It first required God determining to extend power toward us who believed on Christ. Now this power is described as the immeasurable greatness of the strength of His might toward us. When we were saved domains, dominions, principalities, bondages, fathomless barriers were broken through to bring us from spiritual death to new spiritual life. It was the same supernatural power that raised Christ from the dead. Since it is the same power, just like Christ has been raised not only physically, but to a new state of existence in the realm that is above any and all earthly authority and limitation.

The truth about Jesus becomes the truth about us. It is because of this reality believers can live with a new supernatural potential in this world that is not limited by factors that regulate and prevent the natural man from accomplishing any righteous purposes of God. This power in us enables us to live according to the will of God above the laws of the natural. The Scripture says. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Our faith enables us to live above sight and His power is made full strength in our weakness (2 Corinthians 5:7; 12:9). We are not limited in understanding the Word of God because of I.Q. when we can understand the things He has prepare for those that love Him through His Spirit which we have received (I Corinthian 2:9-11).

We not only live above the laws of the natural, but also the laws of the impossible. These natural laws say, expect only according to what we see. Expect only according to what we physically have. Expect only according to what we understand. Expect only according to what we are told by experts who rely on probabilities, statistics, and factors of human capability. We who live in the realm with Christ live according to the truth, “What’s impossible for mere humans is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). Our text of devotion reminds us that this is the God that raised His Son Jesus from out of every realm of death with a demonstration of unquantifiable power so that we can be people that believe that miracles in our lives are always within the realm of expectation according to the will and working of God in our lives.
 
So, as those raised to a new life of resurrection now, we are to live according to the realm of Christ our Lord’s authority and power. That is why the Scripture exhorts us that, “Since you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking those things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Keep seeking things above and not things of the earth…” (Colossians 3:1-4).
Prayer: Mighty God, our Heavenly Father, this great thing You have done for and in us through the redemptive work of Your Son and our Savior Jesus is too marvelous for us to behold. Hallelujah! We are so privileged to be recipients of so great a supernatural possession that leads ultimately to glory. We yield that the work You have begun will have its fullest fruition to Your praise, honor, and glory. In Jesus Name we pray with thanksgiving, amen and amen.
By Pastor Wayne Cockrell