Do you know why they yell, “Clear!” when they apply paddles to get someone’s heart going? It is because the tremendous power needed would be dangerous if you were touching the body. If that’s the kind of power necessary to restart a heart, how much power would be needed to bring a dead body back to life, one that had been dead for days? We humans have never harnessed that kind of power. We know how much power it takes to kill a person, but not to resurrect. That power belongs to God alone.
And yet, that power is offered to everyone who will trust Jesus. God applies His power that we might be:
“… raised with him [Jesus] through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:12b- with my added explanation)
I pulled out that half-sentence from a lengthy and somewhat confusing description of what happens to those who trust Jesus for salvation, to highlight the power of God, necessary to bring dead people back to life. Without that power applied, we all are dead. We feel alive because our hearts are beating, but it takes much more to be fully alive. We say someone whose heart beats but who has no brain activity is “brain dead.” God considers us dead if our hearts and brains function but we do not have His Spirit living in our souls. Without His living Spirit, we are missing the essential ingredient for the full life God intended when He designed and created us. We humans lost that Spirit, that Eternal Life, when we rejected God and embraced sin.
By His power, God offers to restore us to full life. This can only happen to those whose sin has been completely paid for and forgiven. Because sin caused our spiritual death, the just penalty for sin is physical death and separation from God, a price we cannot pay. But Jesus willingly paid the full price on our behalf, with His life. God, by His great power raised Him back to life. If you accept this payment for your sins and trust the One Who paid it, then you, too, are raised to life by God’s power.
“When you were dead in your sins … God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,” (Colossians 2:13 excerpt)
FRESH BREAD OF LIFE 