Conquering Death !

Every day as I hear stories of broken lives, failed marriages, deaths in families, addictions, abuse and neglect, lost businesses, broken dreams, and abortions I seem to be mired in the death of this world.  Yet in the darkest places the Light shines the brightest, these people are hungry for hope, redemption, freedom, and love.  There is something about experiencing living death which propels you to seek answers in One that overcame death.  Yet I see so much of what Christ died for not being appropriated in the lives of those in the Body of Christ.  Instead of standing in Christ's victory over death as He entered death to overcome it once and for all, yet so many of us simply fight the effects of death in our lives.  I use myself as an example, I have dealt with the symptoms brought about by my father's suicide for nearing 36 years hoping to be among the normal who seem to function in life with happiness.  I struggle still with the effects of my father's hopeless view of the world that ultimately led to his ending his life and giving up on mankind.  In my more selfish times I think only of my freedom and one day no longer struggling with the darkness that at times still overtakes me.  Yet I see a very different picture that God painted in the story of Creation, He created a people who were made in His likeness and image who were to rule and reign over the earth to spread His glory to the ends of the earth.  This vision is God-sized because it came out of the One who calls Himself the Alpha and the Omega, but we have traded this gargantuan vision for simply "the pursuit of happiness" for myself.  Jesus entered death not just as the Son of God but also as the Son of Man and the representative for a whole redeemed race of people who are "born again" and children of God.  As the human representative in your place Jesus went through the death you deserved took all the punishment and was raised from the dead to overcome the greatest enemy you and I will face for all eternity.  Could it be that we have yet again underestimated the magnitude and power of what Jesus Christ has done as our Redeemer and King.  God does not intend that I just get through the effects of my father's suicide but that I would be a representative "in Christ" of His resurrected and ascended Life.  I am an Overcomer not simply a survivor of suicide or a victim of a horrible tragedy.  As Joseph said, I agree, what Satan meant for Evil God means for good.  As I work with a family who lost a loved one to suicide, I have been drawn to dive headlong into the grief that was still tucked away in my heart.  Not with some morbid desire to wallow in the misery and self-pity but to discover the resurrection life that God will bring forth through this terrible atrocity.  There is nothing normal or okay about what my dad did and I refuse to make it a part of my worldview as just what happens in the world.  The Enemy has sought to strike a blow in our family, our lives, and ultimately at the world.  Jesus has overcome not by fighting death but through entering into death with all it's hopelessness, despair, darkness, and depravity to be risen out the other side producing a new future for all people's who will enter into this New Life.  Just as Jesus had to descend to then ascend, I believe we must do the same if we are to be His representatives in our families and on the earth.  Too often the dark places in families are hidden, denied, avoided, or covered over with distraction.  I believe these are the very places that God invites into, not for the purpose of death but to display the power His Grace "in Christ" in our lives.  Jesus Christ has done much more than save your individual life, He has overcome the enemy of our souls, our families, our communities, and the world.

An Overcomer "in Christ",
Bret