Daily devotion: start to rise with your Savior

Da Paolo Tessione - April 22, 2020

New life is going on. Watch the flowers appear. Listen. It is the singing season. Do not look back. It's not where you're going. With Jesus, you get up.

Rise with your savior
Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Luke 24: 5 (NKJV)

Resurrection is everything, isn't it? It is a metaphor for the whole Christian life. Without it, what is dead is only dead. Over. Finished. Buried forever. No hope that new life will be born. But in Jesus we have the promise that death is not the last word in our stories, not only in an eternal sense but every day. In accidents, in wrong choices, in disappointments, in the other thousand deaths that make up a life.

The worst death of this type I have ever suffered is the death of a relationship. Now it is too painful to even write the details. But someone I loved and trusted wholeheartedly broke that trust. And in turn, it broke me. It is as if I am crushed in dust particles. It took years to put the pieces back together. And what I found out is that sometimes, when you broke up and get back together, you don't come back into your old life. At least not in the same way as it once was. It is like pouring new wine into old wineskins. It just doesn't work.

The problem for me is that I loved my old life. It suited me perfectly. And so, the temptation even now is sometimes to look back and desire what it was. To try to find what I once had. Because the way forward is not familiar. How to start again, it seems more difficult.

That's when I hear the angel's voice: why are you looking for the living among the dead? You won't find it. That thing is over. Finished. Went. But do you see here? Where are you? New life is going on. Watch the flowers appear. Listen. It is the singing season. Do not look back. It's not where you're going. With Jesus, you get up.

Do you know that death, loss or failure that you cannot overcome? It is time to spread the ashes in the wind. Don't keep them longer. It is time to start resurrecting with your living Savior.