..if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…the body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body… “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Cor 15.14&15,20,42-44,55-57)

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him…The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus…offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life.

(Rom 6.6-8,10&11,13)

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

(2 Cor 5.14&15,17)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you.. you will be my people, and I will be your God.

(Ezek 36.26-28)

Easter day…Resurrection day…. whatever one chooses to call it, after that day, all the world was changed for ever. The creator had become a creature. God became human, entering into our darkness and despair in order to do the only thing which could restore us to our place as God’s beloved people, for whom the earth was formed, and with whom He desires to live eternally. When God becomes human, anything may happen: the dead are raised to life and the blind see; the ‘rules’ of creation are joyously suspended, so that food is multiplied and the storm stilled at a word. The outcast is welcomed home, and to each and every one, their dignity and worth as God’s child is restored.

The world in those days couldn’t stand it – Jews and Romans, rich and poor, religious and secular, they united against him and condemned him to death. He was unspeakable, worthless, to be despised and destroyed. Today, our world continues to reject him, to cancel him and persecute those who would speak out in his name.

But he broke death…on the first day of the week, he rose, clothed in the imperishable and glorified body which will one day also be given to each of us.

And today, millions around the world will sing ‘Glory to God’, for his power in salvation through Christ – because in spite of thehuman arrogance born of two millenia of ‘progress’, the risen Christ lives in the hearts of his humble people. What does human scorn matter to us, when we have life in all its fulness and the hope of glory to come?  What hope does a godless universe offer us to compete with full salvation, forgiveness, and new life in Jesus?

I found these words many years ago on the internet, and cannot now track an author to give credit to for them. I share them here, because they powerfully express the truth about the lives of God’s redeemed people. I invite you to read them aloud to yourself – often – as you praise God for his grace and salvation today!

I am not myself. I am Christ raised on high. I am not who I was when I stumbled on sin and lost my way, when guilt or fear kept a close watch through the night, when striving to perform or please marked my day.

I am become another, and what a life is now mine. The fullness of the freedom of the blessings of heaven fills my days and velvet guards my dark. Each part of me is welcomed and loved. I am whole. I am one. I am uncluttered by the past. I am done with death dealing and dogma, with mounting stairs to God. I am not climbing, I am here, raised on high.

I am alive with the life of Christ. I have the fullness of God in my veins, the wisdom of God a treasure in my heart. I can live in His glory, I can serve with His splendour. I can know His ways for they are mine. We are one. I have been raised with Christ.