The month after the news of my son’s arrest, I attended a Christian writers and speakers conference. Before the arrest, I looked forward to this conference. After the arrest, I forced myself to go since all the expenses were paid in advance.
Amazingly, the Lord met me there and loved on me through His faithful servants. After giving my speech and receiving my evaluation, the evaluator took a few minutes to minister to each person personally. It was one of those precious moments that I’ll never forget. When it was my turn, I blurted out my pain about my son’s arrest and the charges against him.
The Scripture she prayed has stuck with me. She prayed…
“I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:19-20 NLT).
She explained that I needed God’s power to raise up my life. We have the same power available to us—mighty power—that God used to raise Christ from the dead.
No doubt about it, life as I knew it was yanked away from me. You see, through my son’s arrest and subsequent conviction, God crucified my flesh and then raised me up to live a new life.
The Apostle Paul wrote about this process in Romans 6:6-7
“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin” (NLT).
The Lord used the season after my son’s conviction to purify my heart in the refiner’s fire. Even as a believer in Christ, there were still sins operating in my life. The Lord led me through a process to crucify that area of sinful nature in me so that He could set me free from the power of sin.
“And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:8-11 NLT).
Verse 8 states that we “died with Christ.” This means that the part of me that had to die was the part that was rebellious and insubordinate to the Lord’s will for my life. He had plans for my life, and part of this plan included allowing my flesh to “die with Christ.”
But the good news is that when we die with Christ, we are also made alive in Him. Because God resurrected Christ, He defeated death. Death had no power over Him and that broke the power of sin!
When my speech evaluator prayed for me that the power that raised Christ from the dead raise up my life—the process began. I’m so thankful that because of God’s resurrection power, I’m made alive in Christ and no longer a slave to sin!
My friend, take a moment to reflect on what the resurrection of Christ means for us. We have access to the same resurrection power in Christ; because HE lives, we live! The same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us.
