Practice Resurrection

Doctors “practice” medicine, athletes practice their sport, musicians practice their instrument, but how do we “practice resurrection?”

I read In Touch daily devotions, here’s what the late Dr. Charles Stanley had to say about it:

In John 12:20-24, Jesus prepared his disciples for His death. He knew it would seem final to them, so He wanted to plant these words in their hearts to help them understand. And it worked. When He rose from the dead, they realized He HAD prepared them, as one poet put it, to practice resurrection.

So, how DO we practice resurrection? We haven’t died yet, after all!

First, we let go of our old ways of living, our selfish desires, and our pride.

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5)

In doing this, we experience a kind of death – one from which we are ‘made alive in the spirit.’

¹⁸For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

(1 Peter 3)

Second, we embrace the faith and hope Jesus provided. This happens in a powerful way every time we gather together with other believers, confessing our sin and receiving God’s forgiveness and mercy. We worship together, in faith that our Savior has died and risen from the grave. And we worship also in hope that the new life we now enjoy partially will be enjoyed completely when Christ comes again.

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Practice resurrection.

¹⁸I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength ²⁰he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms…  (Ephesians 1)