I can’t wait until our Easter celebration this Sunday! We’ll raise the roof celebrating the resurrection of Christ, and we’ll see how that gives us hope for our own resurrection to live in heaven.
The resurrection is one of those beliefs that makes Christians totally unique. Our belief is not that our souls are going to go somewhere else – to another dimension, or another reality, or another existence. It’s not that we’ll be assimilated into the cosmic energy of the universe. Our belief is not that we will be reincarnated into another creature – maybe something better, maybe something worse. Our belief is that we will be resurrected from the dead!
We’re not just talking about the resurrection of your soul. We’re talking about the resurrection of your body, your personality, your emotions, and your desires, but with all the sin and imperfection stripped away. You’ll still be you, just the you you were always meant to be!
Randy Alcorn gives a great picture of this:
Imagine a beautiful rose garden. It’s been perfectly designed and cultivated. But the rosebushes become diseased. The garden becomes a tangled mess. It’s a sad, deteriorated remnant of the glorious garden it once was. Then the gardener determines to reclaim his garden. Day after day he prunes, waters, and fertilizes each bush. His desire isn’t simply to restore the garden to its original beauty, it’s to make it far more beautiful than ever.
When the gardener is done and the roses are thriving, beautiful, and fragrant, is the rose garden the same as it was? Is each individual rose the same? Yes and no. It’s the same rose garden, restored to its previous beauty and beyond. Yet to look at it, it’s hard to believe these are the same roses that were once a withered, tangled mess.
This is a picture of Creation, Fall, and Resurrection. When God is finished, we’ll be ourselves without the sin – meaning that we’ll be the best we can be.
Bring a friend this Sunday morning to discover more!