{"id":2723,"date":"2015-03-29T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=2723"},"modified":"2015-03-29T15:47:01","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T20:47:01","slug":"choose-to-believe-in-christs-resurrection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=2723","title":{"rendered":"Choose to Believe in Christ’s Resurrection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/a>Jesus tells us in John 11:25-26, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”\u00a0\u00a0 Then Jesus asks, “Do you believe this?\u201d (v. 26)<\/p>\n

Well\u2026. do you believe this?<\/p>\n

I think people really want to believe this. People want to believe that Jesus lived, died for us, and lives again. They want to believe that they, too, will live again after they die. They yearn for Jesus to be the resurrection and life he professed to be. Nothing brings more hope to people than Christ\u2019s resurrection because it celebrates the victory of life over death.<\/p>\n

Yet, if you are among those who doubt this happened you are not alone. In Jesus\u2019 time those who chose not to believe in Christ\u2019s resurrection made such claims as: Jesus wasn\u2019t really dead, the disciples stole the body to make it look like Jesus had risen, the Roman authorities removed the body, the eye witnesses who saw Jesus were hallucinating, some saw a vision they conjured up themselves, and when the more than 500 saw Christ at the same time they were all caught up in a \u201cmass ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But consider this\u2026 it would have been impossible to live through a crucifixion, the disciples would not have been willing to die for a lie, the Romans would have gladly produced Jesus\u2019 body if they had it to debunk Christianity, all the eyewitnesses could not be hallucinating the same thing, and \u201cmass ecstasy\u201d sounds like a feeble attempt to find anything to support a losing battle.<\/p>\n

Critics don\u2019t deny that Jesus lived. There is too much evidence to the contrary. But it wasn\u2019t Christ\u2019s life that led to the spread of Christianity; it was his death and resurrection.<\/p>\n

The late German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch said, “It wasn’t the morality of the Sermon on the Mount which enabled Christianity to conquer Roman Paganism, but the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead.\u201d If Christianity was simply based on Jesus\u2019 moral teachings it might have flourished for a while, but would have never lasted \u2013 for \u201cif Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain.\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:17) In other words, the resurrection declares that Christ is Lord. Without it he would be just another prophet.<\/p>\n

When Paul spoke to the philosophers in Athens, the intellectual center of the world, he preached Jesus and his resurrection. (Acts 17:18) This message was so remarkable and amazing that it turned the \u201cworld upside down.\u201d (Acts 17:6) He told them God had given assurance to all men because he raised Jesus from the dead. (Acts 17:31) Jesus was not some dead teacher, martyred prophet, or philosopher! He was and is the risen Christ.\"He<\/a><\/p>\n

Suggestions for practicing this choice:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It is one week until Easter. Find a Christian church, go to it on Easter and listen to the message.<\/li>\n
  2. Think how God uses the resurrection to bind Christianity together realizing that although most Christian churches differ in many of their teachings, most are all agreed that Christ was crucified, died and rose again.<\/li>\n
  3. If you have a problem with the secular aspects of Easter read Easter, Is It Pagan<\/em> by Ralph Woodrow.<\/li>\n
  4. Watch the Mel Gibson\u2019s The Passion of the Christ<\/em> starring Jim Caviezel.\u00a0 If you watch it, don\u2019t think that Christ was a victim of circumstances, because Christ knew what would happen to him when he came to earth. Watch it from the view point of how much Christ loves us that he was willing to sacrifice himself for our sins. (John 10:17-18)<\/li>\n
  5. Ask God to help your unbelief when doubts arise.\u00a0 (Mark 9:24) Some disciples doubted the resurrection, but Jesus came to them to calm their doubts. (Matthew 28:17-18) Remember, it is never too late to believe!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jesus tells us in John 11:25-26, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”\u00a0\u00a0 Then Jesus asks, “Do you believe this?\u201d (v. 26) Well\u2026. do you believe this? I think … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}