Howdy,
Got my phone back. It came back on. Dead, to living again.
I’d call it a resurrection, but that rings sacrilegious in a Sunday Scripture series.
The Resurrection is more than an smartphone with a dumbbattery dying selfishly on its own schedule and inconvenience and deciding to restart three hours later at 6% charge when it went under at 100%. Much more.
Let alone being on a vastly different plane in important, in those percentage terms, it’s almost the opposite. Sacrificial and not in anyway selfish, Jesus Christ was a 100% when He was put to death on that cross (for us) and yet somehow came back, rose again, stronger: the power of resurrection—new life for others, redeemed and righteous.
(Don’t get me wrong Jesus—God—was God before His resurrection, and God doesn’t “get better.” He doesn’t need to improve, doesn’t need to gain, He is Best. There’s no room: He is perfect. What God did was share His way with us. He changed the situation (“death no longer has dominion over Him”), and you could probably reasonably say that Christ came out stronger than Satan imagined He would. Christ defeated Death—and that’s not something seen. That’s strong. Stronger than supposed. He exchanged our plan, cleared our reception.)
I haven’t yet gone to my ESV Bible app on my iPhone to pick a “FAVORITES” passage for the Biblical reference for this Sunday Scripture series post. I’ve simply written about my iStupidphone and how much God is better than it. Heretical, I know.
God? Better than a cellphone? Come on! These days?
Yes.
Even these days. (My phone died! I’m going to die! I can’t breathe. I’m so disconnected! I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. Help! Ahh … a screen and connectivity. I thought I was going to die!) So disconnected.
We’re going to need God to save us from these days.
Like we always have.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
“For if we have been united with Him in death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
“… [P]resent yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and … as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:3-11, 13b-14).
Thank You, O Breath of Life.
(This isn’t a link to the hymn, O Breath of Life, but it is something I found looking for one, and “It was so good it made me want to go to church.” Enjoy.)
Have a happy and connected Sunday. Give God a call. If you miss Him, He’s good at calling back.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 173,637 / On Pace: 169,400 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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