30th Mar 26 | 13:54
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Luke 24 1-8 JESUS HAS RISEN 03 25Feb2022 Luke 24 1-8 Looking to Jesus
📖 Luke 24:1-8
03 – 25Feb2022 – Looking to Jesus - Luke 24:01-08 - JESUS HAS RISEN - Bible reading: Hebrews 12:1-2
“Thank You, Lord Jesus, You are calling us to live in the realm of resurrection. Please help us to take our eyes away from things that cause pessimism. Enable us to be totally lost and abandoned in You. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen.”
Luke 24:1-2 Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. (2) But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
The women came to honour Jesus and they were concerned as to how the stone will be rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. They were fixed in their view that Jesus was dead and so it is His body that they would anoint. The women were not thinking of resurrection at all.
As they approached the tomb, they were surprised that the stone was rolled away. Then they had a bigger astonishment that the body of Jesus was missing.
Luke 24:3 Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Even at this point, the possibility that Jesus could have risen from the dead, did not occur to these women.
Let us look at this man who was sick for thirty-eight years and did not expect anything different to ever take place in his life.
Many of us are very similar. We hold on to our pet issues that we see as major hindrances to the life of resurrection. We have resigned ourselves to a state of defeat.
John 5:5-6 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. (6) When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, " Do you want to be made well? "
The Lord was giving this man an exceptional opportunity to come into deliverance, freedom and resurrection. This is the question the Lord is asking each of us. Do you want the big stone in your life to be rolled away?
John 5:7-8 The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." (8) Jesus said to him, " Rise, take up your bed and walk ."
The Lord was providing this man with resurrection.
The Lord is inviting us into a life of victory. We are no more people who belong to the category of the dead but we belong to the category of the living.
Then the angel met with the women and spoke with them.
Luke 24:4-8 And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. (5) Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? (6) He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, (7) saying, 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.' " (8) And they remembered His words.
It was only when the angel met and spoke with them that the women began to consider resurrection.
Later in the same chapter, we read of the two disciples, who were walking to Emmaus and the Lord joined with them. These two disciples were full of gloom. Crucifixion, death, burial and even the resurrection had taken place but nothing had changed in their life.
Listen to what they tell Jesus.
Luke 24:22-23 Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. (23) When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive.
The women had conveyed what took place to the other disciples but look at how these two disciples received and interpreted what the women had said. Instead of saying that the women had met with the angels, they changed the account of the women to, 'have seen a vision of angels'.
Does not all of this sound so familiar to us? We limit God. The biggest hindrance for the life of resurrection to flow in the church is our cynicism and our scepticism .
We live in the dimension of the earthly, whereas God wants us to expect the glorious. The women came to anoint the dead body, but the Lord was waiting for them with the stone rolled away and an empty tomb to give them resurrection . The Lord had prepared a banquet for the women to come and feast. The banquet of resurrection.
I Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written: "EYE HAS NOT SEEN, NOR EAR HEARD, NOR HAVE ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM."
This is the resurrection life that the Lord wants each of us to receive from Him. May we throw aside all our filthy garments and all that easily weighs us down and enter into resurrection by looking to Jesus.
Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2) looking unto Jesus , the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Thought to ponder
Don’t limit God. Look to Jesus