Devotions

In Genesis we read the story of Jacob’s wife, Rachel, and her desperate desire to have a child. She could no longer bear the thought of living without knowing the joy of childbirth, without experiencing all that was intended for her as a woman. In Jewish culture a woman without a child was looked on with disdain, as an incomplete person. Rachel’s pain was unbearable, and she cried out to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” (Genesis 30:1).

Bringing a soul to Christ is very much like giving birth. The Holy Spirit conceives the desire in our hearts, and we then begin to nurture the process, growing in our relationship, praying for them regularly. We feel the time coming near and long to see our new baby delivered. We want to hold and nurture our new child, to experience both the pain and joy of childbirth. When it finally happens, when our new baby is born, we don’t want to put it down. All we can think about is helping our child grow and flourish and take on the image of Christ.

If only every follower of Christ felt this same sense of passion and urgency to bring a new child into God’s kingdom! What if the desire burned within our hearts until we finally cried out to God, “Give me a spiritual child, or I will die!”? You and I both know what would happen: God would honor those prayers. 

But everywhere I go I meet Christians who have never felt the joy of leading a soul to Christ. They come to me asking for advice, sometimes embarrassed by the confession. I tell them not to be ashamed by this fact but instead excited that the Holy Spirit is convicting their hearts.

“The first step in sharing your faith is developing a burning desire to do so,” I tell them. And we can count on the Holy Spirit to ignite this desperate desire within us, if we ask and allow him to.

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run. 

We are familiar with the account of the grieving father who came to Jesus for the healing of his dying daughter. “One of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and begged Him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she shall live.’ So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him” (Mark 5:22–24).

Clearly, Jairus had a good measure of faith. He urged Jesus, “Come and lay hands on her and she’ll be healed.” What an affirmation of Jairus’ deep belief: “My daughter only needs Jesus’ touch. He has all power. He can keep her from death.”

Jairus’ attitude represents most Christians today. When we are in a deep crisis, we know Jesus is our only hope. And so we run to Him in our need, falling at His feet and seeking His mercy and help.

Jesus responded to Jairus’ faith by going with him. Can you imagine the great hope that must have filled that father’s heart? Yet, at the same time, I believe a terrible thought might have struck Jairus: “What if we’re too late? It’s wonderful to have Jesus by my side but we need time. With every step we take back to my house, life is seeping out of my daughter.”

In our own crises, most of us say the same thing Jairus did: “I need you, Jesus. But we are running out of time.” Had Jairus known who Jesus was — the resurrection and the life — he would have rested at heart. He could have reassured his troubled spirit, “Jesus exists outside of time. We don’t need more time. We only need Him!” 

Scripture says we have been provided the same energizing, resurrection life that is in Christ: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). He infuses our mortal bodies with physical strength through the very energy of God.

Our faith simply has to go beyond the point of death. We must look into the very face of all that is dead and proclaim, “Jesus never gives up on that which appears to be dead.” We need a faith that refuses to give up on anyone or anything, no matter how hopeless the situation seems.

Christ will astonish us by His power. Indeed, if you hold on in unswerving faith, you are in for a glorious manifestation of His resurrection life. Only you and the Lord will know all the intimate workings of His miracle, but He will astonish and thrill you as He shows you His great glory.

“You, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him” (Colossians 2:13).

“But God … because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5).

“It is the Spirit who gives life” (John 6:63). “The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).

How clear is His message to us! The Holy Spirit dwells in us to bring forth His constant life. That is Christ’s present greatness.

We all have a secret graveyard in our lives. I’m talking about someone or something we gave up on long ago. We have buried it, placed a tombstone over it and written the date of death on it.

I think of a dear acquaintance who told my wife and me about going to her children’s graduation ceremony. This woman’s husband had left her years before for another woman. At the graduation, the man and his new wife showed up, along with many of his new relatives.

How difficult it was for her. At that point, our friend’s former marriage was beyond resurrection and she had accepted it. Yet, as she sat within a few feet of her ex–husband and his new family, God led this woman to go back to the gravesite of her marriage. And in obedience, she began to pray for the salvation of her former husband, as well as for his wife.

Why would she do this? She wanted him resurrected from the death of sin. You see, because she knew Christ, she refused to give up on the dead. She walked in the assurance that Jesus has present-day resurrection power to bring life out of death.

Our Lord brings life out of death and He never gives up. All that is needed is His word, His breath, and suddenly what appears dead and hopeless comes to new life.

Jesus not only claimed to have power over death, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), but He proved it!

Dare we believe what Jesus said about resurrection life and apply it to our lives?

The apostle Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus: “That you may know . . . what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power” (Ephesians 1:18–19). Paul was saying, “May God reveal to you not just the past greatness of Christ but His present greatness.”

The Church today has great reverence for the Jesus who walked on Earth — the Galilean, the son of Mary, the teacher and miracle worker. We never grow weary of hearing and telling of the greatness of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

We love to remind ourselves of how this Jesus chased demons and stood strong against all temptations. He opened blind eyes, unstopped deaf ears, caused paralytics to leap, restored withered arms, healed lepers. He turned water into wine, fed multitudes with just a few loaves and fishes, and on more than one occasion He raised the dead.

Yet, at some point in history, Christians began to limit the present power of our great, miracle-working Savior. The Church developed a theology that made Christ God of the spiritual but not of the natural. We often don’t know Him as Lord over our everyday affairs, as God of our home, our children and marriage, our job and bills.

Paul is telling us we need a revelation of the power of the resurrected Jesus, seated at the right hand of God, with all power given to Him in heaven and on earth. “[God] put all things under His feet” (Ephesians 1:22).

As I read this passage, my heart was stirred with a powerful truth: “Jesus has never been more powerful than He is right now.” Moreover, according to Paul, Christ is “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:21).