You rose in victory

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25 NIV)

 How wonderful, how marvelous is Your love for us, dear Savior, to think You were willing to do all that and go through that for us! You didn’t really want to. You didn’t desire it, but “nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done.” Not my will, but Thine be done. May these be the words and the thought and intent of the hearts of all of us.
 Thank You for Your love, for being willing to go through all that. What a day of rejoicing that must have been when You rose and You realized it was all over. You had won the victory, the world was saved! You had accomplished Your mission. You had gone through the horrors of hell for us and death, agony, all of it, and it was over.
 You rose in victory, joy, liberty, freedom from Your enemies and from the hands of men and the cruelty of men, never to die again. So that You could redeem us as well from the same, and prevent our having to go through it. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. But who hath delivered us from the body of this death? I thank the Lord through the blood of Jesus Christ.” Thank You, Lord, for that glorious victory! In Jesus’ name, amen. —DBB [1]

 Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about. —N. T. Wright

[1] DBB Anchor Easter Celebration