Tag: resurrection

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Lean Into Our Living Hope

Risen Lord,
By your resurrection, we have the guarantee of eternal life locked in. And along with that assurance, we have a living hope to carry us through life’s hassles, hardships, and uncertainties. Our hope is not some wishy-washy “hoped-for” hope, but the complete confidence that we will not be overcome, and you will see us through every ordeal we could ever face. Since neither of our greatest enemies, death nor the devil, was able to undermine or overpower you, what other force is left to fear? Nothing! By faith we trust this promise; empower us with the hope to live boldly in it. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For the Continued Joy of Easter Worship

Heavenly Father,
Sundays are sacred, and none more so than Easter worship last Sunday. And, just as with other milestone events and holiday highs, sometimes we feel the emotional swing of letdown in the days or weeks that follow. Let it not be so with Easter! The Resurrection isn’t a one-and-done, but an ongoing, eternal reality for us. The tomb is still empty. Jesus still lives, and always will, and so will we. Lead your faithful followers back to fill up churches again this week, to still listen with wonder as the blessings of the Resurrection keep unfolding in Scripture, and to sing aloud the Easter hymns with all the exuberant joy of Easter Sunday. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For Easter’s Work to Continue

Risen Savior,
How our hearts burned within us yesterday at our Easter celebration! Though all human effort falls short, we pray that you were glorified and exalted in a most worthy manner by believers everywhere. Through the preaching, hymns, and songs highlighting the certainty of the Resurrection, your people were edified as well. We boldly ask the Spirit to continue nurturing all seeds of faith that were planted yesterday, and that a great number of wandering sheep were brought back in closer to the fold and to you, their Good Shepherd. May this wonderful truth, that the Resurrection is not as much a one-time celebration as it is a daily reality, sustain and uplift our spirits even as the day of Easter itself has passed.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For Resurrection Joy

Heavenly Father,
Sundays are sacred, and none more sacred than this festival morning, as we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The long Lenten journey culminated at the cross, where death appeared to swallow up the Savior. But this morning we see a different story: the tables have turned, and it is death that has been swallowed up by the victorious Resurrection! Bless all who gather today to celebrate your gifts of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. Let the empty tomb ease minds troubled by thoughts of dying and calm hearts afraid of death. Fill countless souls with joy on this day, for today and always, life rules because He lives!

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Realize How Truly Blessed I Am

Precious Savior,
Today, with the smell of snuffed-out Good Friday candles wafting behind me and the floral aroma of Easter lilies before me, let me pause to reflect how richly blessed I am. You, the innocent Son of God, took my place as a guilty crucified criminal. You endured the wrath and punishment that should have been mine. You died… for me. Tomorrow, I celebrate once again with blissful joy your rising up from the grave to live again… for me! These monumental milestones are mine to rejoice over, as they have forever altered my eternity. Since they cannot be taken from me or be undone, my joy is everlasting. Because you died and live again, so will I. How overjoyed my heart is to fathom it all!

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

Life

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(John 11:17-45)

If you’re familiar with John chapter 11, then you have already stood in awe of the rock-solid faith of both Mary & Martha. Martha professed to Jesus her confidence in the Resurrection when she stated that she knew her brother would be raised on the last day. “Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day’” (v.24). In one beautiful confession, she acknowledged believing both that Jesus would return on the last day and that when he did, all believers would rise again, including her brother. 

Yet her faith was not just a forward-looking faith; in looking backward, it also assured her of how differently her brother’s sickness could have ended. “‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died’” (v.21). We see Mary demonstrate the exact same confidence. “When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’” (v.32). Subtle as it might be, notice they don’t express mere optimism that it could have gone differently if Jesus had arrived earlier, saving Lazarus from death, but complete confidence that it would have gone differently because Jesus would have healed him. 

First of all, where does this kind of faith come from? To get the full picture, I think that any time we come across John 11, it should always be read with Luke 10 in mind. That’s where Luke records for us the account of Jesus at the home of Mary and Martha, long before Lazarus had even been sick. At that time, Martha was busying herself tidying up the house and preparing food for Jesus. In her mind, Mary was just sitting around doing nothing while she did all the work.

But Jesus saw it differently. He used that opportunity not to rebuke Martha for her loving service, but to remind her that Mary had made the better choice: to prioritize hearing the Word. Whenever we have the opportunity to listen to Jesus, take it.

Why does that account fit so well with what we have here in John 11? Because it would appear that over the course of time between that visit from Jesus and the death of Lazarus, the sisters took Jesus’ encouragement to heart, prioritized his teachings in their lives, and their faith was strengthened as a result. That would explain the sisters’ beautiful expression of confident faith that Jesus would have healed Lazarus if he had arrived earlier. 

Of course, that kind of faith comes with a catch, doesn’t it? When we know what God can do, it can lead us to struggle when he doesn’t. Some who were present expressed that very struggle when they witnessed all of the grieving and sadness caused by the death of Lazarus. “But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’” (v.37). If he was able to act, then why didn’t he?

As you faced the ugly, gut-wrenching reality of the death of someone close to you, perhaps you’ve had similar questions weigh heavily on you. You’ve wondered it previously: why didn’t Jesus, who reveals in Scripture both that he can heal disease and raise others from the dead, why didn’t he intervene when it came to my father, my mother, my spouse, my loved one? He could have, but instead, he did nothing. Why? Well-intentioned fellow Christians have tried to provide every possible response to appease this frustration, but their answers don’t satisfy us. We still come back to this: “if God could have, then why didn’t he?”

Or, like Martha, you’ve both confessed and struggled with the reality of a Savior who was capable of healing and holding off death, but did not. “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask” (v.22). Do you hear the confident trust in her words, coupled with the longing of what her heart truly desires? She both expresses confidence that Jesus had the power to save her brother from dying, but also that, “it’s not too late, Lord – and I am optimistic that even now you can choose to grant my heart’s desire and raise my brother from the dead.”

Is it too much to ask of God to somehow have asked even this sort of miracle in the life of my loved one? Why not a miracle? Why not my loved one? Was my loved one not worthy of this type of death-defying miracle that Lazarus received? Am I not worthy of it? 

Before we allow Jesus to address and answer these questions, we want to remember how God himself feels about death. And, like no other account in Scripture, this event provides us with a powerful example.

At the beginning of this whole narrative, we see the risk Jesus was willing to take to deal with death: his disciples were afraid for his own life! When Jesus shared his desire to go to Lazarus, they were shocked. “‘But Rabbi,’ they said, ‘a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?’” (v.8). They realized Jesus was putting himself in danger by going anywhere near Lazarus, where he would be putting himself right back in the thick of those trying to kill him. Is there really any question if Jesus cares about people dying when he’s willing to put his own life on the line to do something about it???

We also experience Lazarus’ death from Jesus’ perspective. “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ (v.33-36). “Jesus wept!” And it wasn’t just because he missed his friend – the one he was going to raise back to life in just a moment! – but also because he personally witnessed firsthand the devastating effect death has on people in this world. 

How much does God care? Since Jesus came into this broken world, let’s not presume he doesn’t care about death or loss. He’s actually the One person able to do something about it. And he showed it powerfully with Lazarus. “So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go’” (John 11:41-44). Can we question if God really cares about people dying after a miracle like this? Hardly!

But we must go further, because Jesus also knows what happens to those who die physically who are also spiritually dead at the same time: that they are lost forever to hell. God expressed this concern through the prophet Ezekiel, saying, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11). So yes, God certainly cares about death, and far more than we could imagine, as his heart is concerned not just about the pain of needing to plan a funeral, but the possibility of being lost eternally. 

But we must go further still. Why did Jesus raise Lazarus? Was it simply to dry the tears of mourning loved ones? To undo the sting of death?

He revealed it by his own words when he spoke to his Father, explaining the deeper intent behind this miraculous occasion, “that they may believe you sent me” (v.42). God knows our greatest need: faith in him! God knows there is no hope for anyone who does not believe.

Even before Jesus arrived at the gravesite, he had already said the same thing to his disciples. “[Jesus] told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe” (v.14-15). God knows our greatest need: faith in him! God can do so much more than raise a corpse to be alive again; he can bring dead souls to be spiritually alive, guaranteeing not just an extension of a longer life here on earth for a few more years, but for an eternity! 

And his raising of Lazarus from the dead didn’t just bring Lazarus back for a few years, but rescued souls for eternity. “Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him” (v.45).

Isn’t that how God operates? We have tunnel vision, focusing on the one thing, and all the while God is thinking of the bigger picture. He gave sisters back their dead brother, but he gave who-knows-how-many onlookers the greatest gift of all: saving faith in him. They heard Jesus’ powerful words and saw them in action with their own eyes, and through it, the Holy Spirit gifted them with faith and eternal life. Jesus gave so much more than just life to the dead!

The resurrection of Lazarus was not a promise that God will miraculously raise our loved ones from the dead here and now.

It’s a promise much greater than that.

God WILL raise all those in Christ on the Last Day, and it will be forever. God knows our desire and exceeds what we could ask for by promising not just a few more years together in this short blip of life that barely even registers on the timeline of eternity, but he promises forever together for all who believe in him. 

Lazarus died again. You will die. I will die. We will all have our own John 11 story. But it’s not the dying that sets us apart. We have that in common with all people. Everyone dies.

But what sets us apart, what is uniquely shared among us and all believers, is that we know the One who lived again. We know the One who still lives. We know the One who will live forever. And through faith in him, we know that we, too, will live with him forever, together with all of our loved ones who in faith fall asleep in Jesus. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For the Gift of Life

Dear Jesus,
The gift is not like the trespass. Because of the trespass of one man, Adam, death reigned. It ruled without mercy, unchallenged. All sinners were helpless to address their fate. Then you came, Lord, and dethroned death! By your sinless life, your sacrificial death, and your death-defying resurrection, you brought life. Truly, the gift is not like the trespass! Where faith in you is present, death no longer calls the shots, but must submit to the eternal life that is your gift of grace to all who believe. Thank you for the grace that makes this gift mine.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Let Your Light Shine Brightly

Light of the World,
You came into the world to shine the bright light of your glorious salvation through your holy life, your undeserved death, and your magnificent resurrection. Now, you rule over all things and work them out for the good of your church. Nevertheless, so many who are outside the realm of your kingdom still don’t know the light of salvation. Use me to light a candle and make your gracious forgiveness known. Shine the joy and certainty of salvation through me as I witness to others. No one needs to remain in the darkness of unbelief and sin, since you came to undo their permanent reign. Light up the world, and use me to do it.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Live in the Confidence of the Resurrection

Victorious Savior,
By your resurrection, you solidified and secured all that was necessary for our salvation. We are free from Satan’s slavery, from sin’s condemnation, and from death’s eternal claim on us. You are victorious, and through faith in you, that victory is also ours. 

We are not longer among the spiritually walking dead, but having been raised with you, are victorious and alive. Let your resurrection give us a spiritual swagger that allows us to live boldly in confidence. Steer us away from claims or feelings of victimhood or pity when we forget who we are in you. Instead, make us eager to be the salt and light you have made us to be in this world. Let us not shy away from conversations or behavior that would celebrate you, but embrace all such opportunities to exude the confidence we have as victors through the Resurrection.  

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

Ascending & Sending, Part 2: The Means

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(Acts 2:1-21)

“Turn around. Your sins have been let go.” That’s how we boiled down the message of our mission in part one. It was how we captured what Jesus meant when he told his disciples that “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations” (Lk. 24:47) and reminded them that they were witnesses, both having seen Jesus carry out the work he was sent to do, and now testifying to it as the mission is carried out. We tell others, “Turn around. Your sins have been let go.” 

It was ten days prior to the events in Acts 2 when Jesus ascended while blessing the disciples. It was at that time that he also sent the disciples on their mission. But he was not done sending. He wasn’t just sending them; there was another gift Jesus promised to send. “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Lk. 24:49). Now, on the day we call Pentecost (not some deeply significant theological designation, but which means “50”, as in fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection), Jesus was sending the very gift he promised: the Holy Spirit. 

If you had to guess where some monumental event in church history might take place, where might you guess? Church, right? Or, in their day, the temple, which is where Luke said the disciples stayed continually to praise God. That would make sense. But that’s not where the Spirit was sent on this very special occasion.

Instead, we’re told they were together in a house. Now, without stretching the significance of this too far, it may nonetheless serve as a good reminder for us that the work of the Spirit and the work of his Church is not by any means limited to the church as a building. Sure, the physical location, along with Christian churches wherever the gospel is preached and the sacraments are rightly administered and received, is essential to our mission. But it isn’t exclusive, by any means. Essential, yes. Exclusive, no. 

Why? Because the Holy Spirit can and does work anywhere. He has worked in foreign lands, as he did through Moses in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon. He can show up in a burning bush. He can speak through a donkey. He can communicate through the powerful visual of a valley of dry bones. 

And, he can work as he did here among the believers on Pentecost. His work was visual, audible, and intelligible. Ultimately, it was just the means needed to carry out the mission: communicate to the ends of the earth the message, “Turn around. Your sins have been let go.” Tongues that were tangled and tied at Babel became loosed and unleashed.

When we strip away the Spirit’s special effects, what did it all come down to? Communicating in a language everyone could understand by the simplest means possible: spoken words. There was speaking and there was hearing. It was that simple. Was there any better gift that could be given to spread the message than removing the barrier of foreign language? Jesus said “all nations,” and he had now made that possible. They had the means by which to carry out the mission.

You know, don’t you, that we still have the means to carry out the mission today? Recently in our congregation, three youth confirmands were joined by two adults in professing their faith in Jesus. That same Sunday, as well as the Sunday prior, each included a baptism. Then, on the Sunday that followed, those confirmands received the Lord’s Supper together with their church family for the first time. What is behind all of this? What do all of these things have in common? 

Well, if you ask someone without the Spirit, they’re all just silly church rituals. They’re far-fetched foolishness and a waste of time.

But if you ask a believer, a child of God, one who has read, studied, and believes what the Word says about all of these things, they all point to one thing in common: the work of the Holy Spirit. Guess what that means? The Holy Spirit’s shift didn’t end after the Day of Pentecost. He didn’t clock out for the last time and decide to retire. Ever since that day, the Spirit has been building up and strengthening the Church, and he will continue to do so until Jesus returns. 

But how do we tap into that power? What does it take to unlock the same jaw-dropping effects of Pentecost? Surely that sort of thing must be relegated to the spiritual cream of the crop. It must be limited to the spiritually trained professionals and the deeply dedicated, the most devoted among us. It must be reserved for the explosive churches and ministries having a world-wide impact, who have clearly discovered something the rest of us have not. 

I think you know better, don’t you? But if we do, then why don’t our words and actions more often show it? When is the last time you got excited to get involved in something at church, not just for the sake of spending time with friends at church – but excited by the potential behind it to reach someone new with the gospel? When is the last time you started getting giddy as you realized a conversation with a non-believer was an open door to point them to their Savior? When is the last time you took the time to even look into any sort of mission work being done by your congregation or church body?

As much as we enjoy functions that bring us together to enjoy each other as we are blessed to do, Lord forgive us if our meeting together overshadows our mission together. Lord forgive us if everything we do together more or less effectively cuts our mission of Seeking the Lost and Serving the Found in half, chopping off the “Seeking the Lost”, leaving only Serving the Found (this is the mission of Shepherd of the Hills).

When we are veering off in that direction, let us run, not walk, to the last verse of our section from Acts 2 this morning: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (v.21). Believe it. you are saved, not because you are on fire with the Holy Spirit. You are saved, not because your spiritual fervor surpasses that of the disciples in the early Christian Church. You are saved because of one reason and one reason only: Jesus.

To call on his name is to cling to his forgiveness, embracing his grace, and savoring the salvation your Savior won for you. Lost your mission zeal? Never had it in the first place? It’s not counted against those who call on his name! We have been saved – but also saved with purpose!

Therefore, I am going to give you both an invitation and a challenge. First, the invitation. Please, use your pastor as a resource. Please, tell others you have a pastor that you can talk to anytime about anything and he’ll do his best to listen, answer questions, and provide guidance. Please, give him referrals. Please, send people his way. Please, share resources with others. Please, speak highly and frequently of your church. Please, tell others what they’re missing if their kids aren’t in your school (if you have one). Please, invite others to anything and everything you do at church – it’s for them, too!)

And here’s the challenge: push yourself to get more confident and more comfortable in carrying out the mission directly yourself. Because… you’re never really by yourself. The Spirit Jesus promised to send after his ascension is still at your side when you communicate the message. You’re never really by yourself.

So speak up. Talk Jesus. Normalize him in your conversations. Look for openings to bring him up whenever you can. Do it until you become so comfortable that it actually feels uncomfortable when you don’t! Go back and read that last sentence again!

If Peter can do it, you can do it. Through the power of the Spirit, Peter, the one who needed his mind opened at Ascension, was the one opening minds on Pentecost, explaining what was happening! Peter, who at one point was determined to keep Jesus from dying, was now connecting the Scriptures for those listening. Peter, who was so confident in his own allegiance to Jesus that he refused to believe he could ever turn on him or deny him, was now appealing not to his own authority, but to God’s authority through his prophets. Jesus had given him the mission; now, in this special outpouring, he was also giving him the means: the Holy Spirit. 

You have the mission and the means. There is no reason the Spirit cannot do through you the sort of things that he did through Peter and so many others. No disrespect to Peter, but there was nothing special about him. The same could be said for many of the men and women in Scripture – there was nothing special about them.

We easily forget that, because of course their names are written in Scripture, and so we automatically elevate them to some superstar spiritual status. But their names aren’t in there because there was something exceptional about them; rather, their names are recorded because they allowed God to use them so that he could do something exceptional through them. Don’t think so little of God that he cannot do the exceptional and extraordinary for his kingdom through ordinary you or me.

In fact, rather than putting all the extra pressure on ourselves, let’s start with ordinary – and let God turn it into extraordinary if he so chooses. Is he able to? Look at Pentecost!

Suppose you find yourself wandering, lost in the woods in the cold chill of winter, desperately seeking warmth. You come across a beautiful cabin that is vacant, and the front door is unlocked. As you enter, the first thing that grabs your attention is the stunning oversized fireplace. The stonework around it is exceptional, the fireplace itself is obviously well-made, and there is even a huge stack of wood inside it, carefully positioned to light up and burn for hours. The only thing missing is the fire itself.

That was the church prior to Pentecost. Everything had been completed and made ready. Jesus had trained and equipped his disciples during his three-year ministry. Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus had ascended and promised the outpouring of a special gift from on high. The only thing missing was the fire itself.

Then, like a lit match in that cabin fireplace, a blazing fire roared to life, throwing light and heat and beauty throughout the whole cabin. When the Spirit came on Pentecost, the whole church also roared to life and began to throw the light and heat and beauty of the gospel to the ends of the earth. Everything was ready; it just needed the Spirit’s spark.

Everything is ready. But the church will not roar to life in its mission if it doesn’t also have the means. It will always be the Spirit driving it. And the Spirit will always drive it through the means of grace – Word and Sacrament. Let’s keep stoking that fire so that the Spirit stirs us to roar to life in carrying out our mission together!