Your Greatest Need: by Sarah Young

1 Thessalonians 5:17 Never stop praying.

John 16:24 You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy.

You need Me every moment. Your awareness of your constant need for Me is your greatest strength. Your neediness, properly handled, is a link to My Presence. However, there are pitfalls that you must be on guard against: self-pity, self-preoccupation, giving up. Your inadequacy presents you with a continual choice--deep dependence on Me, or despair. The emptiness you feel within will be filled either with problems or with My presence. Make Me central in your consciousness by praying continually simple, short prayers flowing out of the present moment. Use My Name liberally, to remind you of My Presence. Keep on asking and you will receive, so that your gladness may be full and complete.

Where Is Death’s Sting? by Henry Blackaby

O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? 1 Corinthians 15:55

Over the centuries, death has been our relentless and unyielding enemy. No one, regardless of worldly rank, strength, or wealth has been able to escape death. As soon as we are born, death becomes our destiny. Many have tried, but no one has developed an antidote for death.

The reality of the resurrection is that death has been defeated! It is no longer the impregnable enemy, for Christ marched through the gates of Hades and claimed decisive victory over death. He conquered death completely; now He assures His followers that we, too, will share in His victory. Christians need not fear death. Christ has gone before us and will take us to join Him in heaven. Death frees us to experience the glorious, heavenly presence of God. No illness can defeat us. No disaster can rob us of eternal life. Death can temporarily remove us from those we love, but it transfers us into the presence of the One who loves us most. God’s glory is His presence. Death, our greatest enemy, is nothing more than the vehicle that enables believers to experience God’s glory!

Do not allow a fear of death to prevent you from experiencing a full and abundant life. Death cannot rob you of the eternal life that is your inheritance as a child of God. Jesus has prepared a place for you in heaven that surpasses your imagination (John 14:1-4). Death will one day be the door by which you gain access to all that is yours in heaven.

New Creatures: by Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4

There is no point in our saying that we believe that Christ has died for us and that we believe our sins are forgiven unless we can also say that for us old things are passed away and all things are become new, that our outlook toward the world and its method of living is entirely changed. It is not that we are sinless, nor that we are perfect, but that we have finished with that way of life. We have seen it for what it is, and we are new creatures for whom everything has become new.

But I can imagine somebody saying, “Don’t you think that this is rather a dangerous doctrine? Don’t you think it is dangerous to tell people that they are dead to sin, dead to the law, dead to Satan, and that God regards them as if they had never sinned at all? Won’t the effect of that make such people say, ‘All right, in view of that, it does not matter what I do’?” But Paul says that what happens is the exact opposite, and that must be so because to be saved and to be truly Christian means that we are in Christ, and if we are in Christ, we are dead to sin, dead to Satan, dead to the world, dead to our old selves. We are like our Lord.

Let me put that positively. We have not only died with Christ— we have also risen with Him: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). We live in “newness of life.” We have been raised with Christ.

His Resurrection Destiny: by Oswald Chambers

Luke 24:26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?

Our Lord’s cross is the gateway into his life. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he rose into a life that was absolutely new, a life he did not live before he was incarnate. This new life came with new power and a new destiny: to bring souls into glory. “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him” (John 17:2 kjv). This is how the Bible says we know our Lord: by “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).

Our Lord’s resurrection power means that now he is able to impart his life to all of us. When we are born again from above, we aren’t born into a new life of our own. We are resurrected into his life—the eternal life of the risen Lord. The name the Bible gives to Eternal Life working inside us here and now is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the deity in proceeding power; he is God applying the atonement to our immediate experience. One day, we will have a body like our Lord’s glorious body; here and now, we can know the power of his resurrection and walk in newness of life.

Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Spirit can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey him. We will never have the exact relationship with the Father that the Son does, but if we will obey, the Son will make us sons and daughters of God, bringing us into oneness with him. “That they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11). This is the meaning of the “at-one-ment.”

Not a Matter of Opinion: by CS Lewis

John 20:27–29 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? By William Lane Craig

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you." Matthew 28:6-7

To answer our question from a historical standpoint, we must first determine what facts concerning the fate of Jesus of Nazareth can be credibly established on the basis of the evidence and second consider what the best explanation of those facts is. At least four facts about the fate of the historical Jesus are widely accepted by NT historians today.
FACT 1: After His crucifixion, Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb.
This fact is highly significant because it means that the location of Jesus' tomb was known in Jerusalem to Jews and Christians alike. New Testament scholars have established the fact of Jesus' entombment on the basis of evidence such as the following:

1. Jesus' burial is attested in the information (from before A.D. 36) that was handed on by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5.
2. The burial story is independently attested in the source material that was used by Mark in writing his Gospel.
3. Given the understandable hostility in the early Christian movement toward the Jewish national leaders, Joseph of Arimathea, as a member of the Jewish high court that condemned Jesus, is unlikely to have been a Christian invention.
4. The burial story is simple and lacks any signs of being developed into a legend.
5. No other competing burial story exists.
For these and other reasons, the majority of NT critics concur that Jesus was in fact buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb.

FACT 2: On the Sunday after the crucifixion, Jesus' tomb was found empty by a group of His women followers. Among the reasons that have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following:

1. In stating that Jesus "was buried, that He was raised on the third day," the old information transmitted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 implies the empty tomb.
2. The empty tomb story also has multiple and independent attestation in Mark, Matthew, and John's source material, some of which is very early.
3. The empty tomb story as related in Mark, our earliest account, is simple and lacks signs of having been embellished as a legend.
4. Given that in Jewish patriarchal culture the testimony of women was regarded as unreliable, the fact that women, rather than men, were the chief witnesses to the empty tomb is best explained by the narrative's being true.
5. The earliest known Jewish response to the proclamation of Jesus' resurrection, namely, the "disciples came during the night and stole Him while we were sleeping" (Mt 28:12-15), was itself an attempt to explain why the body was missing and thus presupposes the empty tomb.
For these and other reasons, a majority of scholars hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical testimony to Jesus' empty tomb.

FACT 3: On multiple occasions, and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups saw Jesus alive after His death. This fact is almost universally acknowledged among NT scholars for the following reasons:

1. Given its early date as well as Paul's personal acquaintance with the people involved, the list of eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection appearances that is quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 guarantees that such appearances occurred.
2. The appearance narratives in the Gospels provide multiple, independent attestations of the appearances.
Even the most skeptical critics acknowledge that the disciples had seen Jesus alive after His death.

FINALLY, FACT 4: The original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe Jesus was risen from the dead, despite having every predisposition to the contrary.
Consider the situation the disciples faced following Jesus' crucifixion:

1. Their leader was dead and Jewish messianic expectations did not expect a Messiah who, instead of triumphing over Israel's enemies, would be shamefully executed by them as a criminal.
2. According to OT law, Jesus' execution exposed Him as a heretic, a man accursed by God.
3. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead to glory and immortality before the general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world.

Nevertheless, the original disciples suddenly came to believe so strongly that God had raised Jesus from the dead that they were willing to die for that belief.
We come now to our second concern: What is the best explanation of these four facts?
In his book Justifying Historical Descriptions, historian C. B. McCullagh lists six tests historians use to determine the best explanation for a given body of historical facts. The hypothesis given by the eyewitnesses-"God raised Jesus from the dead"-passes all these tests:

1. It has great explanatory scope. It explains why the tomb was found empty, why the disciples saw postmortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came into being.
2. It has great explanatory power. It explains why the body of Jesus was gone, why people repeatedly saw Jesus alive despite His earlier public execution, and so forth.
3. It is plausible. Given the historical context of Jesus' unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection makes sense as the divine confirmation of those radical claims.
4. It is not ad hoc or contrived. It requires only one additional hypothesis: that God exists.
5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" does not in any way conflict with the accepted belief that people do not rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief as wholeheartedly as he accepts the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.
6. It far outstrips any of its rival theories in meeting conditions 1 through 5. Down through history, various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered-the conspiracy theory, the apparent death theory, the hallucination theory, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. No naturalistic hypothesis has, in fact, attracted a great number of scholars.

Therefore, the best explanation of the established facts seems to be that God raised Jesus from the dead.
We have firm historical grounds for answering our question in the affirmative. The historical route is not, however, the only avenue to a knowledge of Jesus' resurrection. The majority of Christians, who have had neither the resources, training, nor leisure to conduct a historical inquiry into this event, have come to a knowledge of Jesus' resurrection through a personal encounter with the living Lord (Rm 8:9-17).

 

How Is the Transformation of Jesus' Disciples Different from Other Religious Transformations? By Gary R.Habermas

1 Corinthians 15:5–8 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

When people discuss the beliefs of Jesus' disciples and their willingness to suffer martyrdom for their convictions, they often make comparisons to other religious persons whose lives were also changed due to their own religious beliefs. Like Jesus' disciples, many have willingly given their lives for their beliefs. Examples include modern Muslims, the followers of various religious teachers, and certain UFO groups. Even political ideas, such as communism, have inspired life changes and martyrdoms.
Under these circumstances, can Christians continue to make evidential use of the disciples' transformations?
Initially, we need to make a crucial distinction. Transformed lives, whether the disciples' or others', do not prove that someone's teachings are true. However, they do constitute evidence that those who are willing to suffer and die for their religious commitments truly believe them to be true.
So, can we distinguish between the disciples' transformations and the experiences of others? In general, people committed to a religious or political message really believe it to be true. Of course, beliefs can be false. But in the case of Jesus' disciples, one grand distinction makes all the difference in the world.
Like other examples of religious or political faith, the disciples believed and followed their leader's teachings. But unlike all others, the disciples had more than just their beliefs-they had seen the resurrected Jesus. This is a crucial distinction; their faith was true precisely because of the resurrection.
Let's view this another way. Which is more likely-that an ideology we believe in is true or that we and a number of others saw a friend several times during the last month? If eternity rested on the consequences, would we rather base our assurance on the truth of a particular religious or political view, or would we rather that the consequences followed from repeated cases of seeing someone?

But unlike the world's faiths, which rest on certain beliefs being true, the disciples both heard unique teachings and saw the resurrected Jesus. Jesus was the only founder of a major world religion who had miracles reported of Him in reliable sources within a few decades. But most of all, He confirmed His message by rising from the dead. The disciples, both individuals and groups, saw Him repeatedly. Even two skeptics-James the brother of Jesus and Saul of Tarsus (Paul)-witnessed the resurrected Jesus.
No wonder the disciples were so sure of their faith! Not only had they been promised heaven, but then they had actually been shown a glimpse of it!

Can Naturalistic Theories Account for the Resurrection? by Gary R. Habermas

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

One of our first thoughts when we hear someone claim to have witnessed a miracle is that there must be some sort of natural explanation. After all, even if they do occur, miracles are not the norm in nature.
In the Gospels we are told there was a similar response relating to Christ's resurrection. When the Jewish priests were told the report of the empty tomb, they spread the tale that Jesus' disciples had stolen His body (Mt 28:12-15).
Even believers reacted this way. When Mary Magdalene initially saw Jesus, she made a natural assumption, supposing He was the gardener (Jn 20:10-15). When the disciples heard the report of the women who had gone to Jesus' tomb, they thought the women were spreading rumors or false tales (Lk 24:11). Later, when they saw the risen Jesus, these same followers thought they were seeing a ghost or hallucination (Lk 24:36-43).
Throughout history many have had similar responses regarding Jesus' resurrection, attempting to come up with naturalistic theories to explain away the resurrection. These attempts were far more common in the nineteenth century than they are today. Even if we were to ignore the majority of the information in the Gospels, appealing only to those historical facts that are acknowledged by virtually every scholar who studies this subject, both conservative and liberal, we still have many major responses to each of the naturalistic theories. Not surprisingly, comparatively few scholars today think any of these alternative hypotheses really works.
For example, few critics have proposed that Jesus never died on the cross but instead "swooned"-fainted and only appeared dead. Dozens of medical studies have shown how death by crucifixion really kills and how this would be recognized by those present. Most of these reports argue that the chief cause of death in crucifixion was asphyxiation (death from being unable to breathe). It is even easy to ascertain when the victim was dead-he remained hanging in the down position without pushing up to breathe. Additionally, a death blow frequently ensured the victim's demise. The prevailing medical explanation of Jesus' chest wound is that the presence of blood and water indicated He was stabbed through the heart, thereby ensuring His death.
But many scholars think another serious problem dooms the swoon theory. If Jesus had not died on the cross, He would have been in exceptionally bad shape when His followers saw Him. Limping profusely, bleeding from His many wounds and probably even leaving a bloody trail, stoop-shouldered and pale, He hardly would have been able to convince His disciples that He was their risen Lord-and in a transformed body at that! Many historical reasons and the near unanimity of scholarly opinion indicate that Jesus' disciples at least truly believed they had seen Him resurrected. On such grounds the swoon thesis is actually self-refuting. It presents a Jesus who would have contradicted the disciples' belief in His resurrection simply by appearing in the horrible physical shape that is demanded by this view!
But could the disciples have stolen His dead body? This approach has been almost ignored for more than 200 years because it would not explain the disciples' sincere belief that they had seen the risen Jesus-a belief for which they were clearly willing to die. Their transformations need an adequate explanation. Neither would the theft hypothesis explain the conversions from skepticism by James, the brother of Jesus. or Paul, occasioned by their own beliefs that they had also seen the risen Jesus. These facts are noted even by critical scholars.
Might someone else have stolen Jesus' body? This approach addresses nothing but the empty tomb. It provides no explanation for Jesus' appearances, which are the best evidence for the resurrection. Further, it fails to account for the conversions of James and Paul. Besides, many candidates for the body stealers would have had no motivation for taking the body. This alternative accounts for far too little of the known data. It is no wonder that critics virtually never opt for it.
There are myriads of problems with hallucination theories, too. We will mention just a few. Hallucinations are private experiences, whereas our earliest accounts report that Jesus appeared to groups as well as to individuals. Further, the dissimilar personalities witnessing the appearances clearly militate against everyone's inventing a mental image, often at the same time. So do the reactions of those disciples who responded to reports of the resurrection by doubting. The conversions of James and Paul are extremely problematic for this view, since unbelieving skeptics would hardly desire to hallucinate about the risen Jesus. And if hallucinations are the best explanation, then the tomb should not have been empty!
Could the resurrection accounts have developed later as mere stories that grew over time? A few of the potential responses should be adequate. Here again, the fact that the disciples truly believed they had seen the risen Jesus is highly problematic for this view, since it indicates the original accounts were derived from the eyewitnesses themselves, not from some later stories. Further, the fact that these appearances were reported extremely early, within just a few years of the crucifixion, attests that at least the core message was intact from the outset.
Moreover. the empty tomb would be a constant physical reminder that this was not just some ungrounded tale. Both James and Paul again provide even more insurmountable problems for this view, for these skeptics were convinced that they had also seen the risen Jesus; tales developing years later fail to account for their conversions.
For reasons such as these, most critical scholars today reject the naturalistic theories as adequate accounts of Jesus' resurrection. They simply do not explain the known historical data. In fact, many liberal scholars even critique the alternatives that are periodically suggested!
Here we have a strong witness to the historical nature of Jesus' resurrection. Naturalistic theories have failed. Further, many historical evidences favor the resurrection. Taking all this together, we have strong reasons to believe that this event actually occurred in history. After all, the more thoroughly the alternative theories fail, the more we are left with the evidences themselves, and they are powerful indicators that Jesus rose from the dead.