Man always wants to pull himself us by his bootstraps. We still ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" — as if being saved is a doing rather than a being.

Likewise, now that we know we have resurrection power as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we want to understand how do we make it work — which is the wrong question.

How does resurrection work in us? How does the power work in your house? Or in your car? You don't generate any of it, do you? You let it work. You surrender to it.

All you have to do is make sure you're connected. You make sure the car has fuel. Wasn't this what Jesus was telling us in the parable about the wise and foolish virgins? The wise ones stayed connected to the power source and as a result, their lamps continually burned bright. The foolish ones let it run out and their lamps got dim.

In your house, you pay the power bill and somebody else generates the power. All you have to do is plug in. Let there be light. Let it be. You fill your tank and you don't have to Fred Flintstone it down the street. You tap a pedal and the power is generated.

Chris Tiegreen explains this concept in greater detail in our final installment today.

Leaning into Resurrection Power

By Chris Tiegreen

I had never tried to water-ski before, but it looked easy enough. So when my friends strapped the lifejacket on me, helped me get the skis on, and plunged me in the water behind the boat, I was ready to go.

“Don’t try to pull yourself up,” they told me. “Let the boat do the work!”

Don’t pull up, I said to myself again and again. Resist the urge.

So what happened when the boat revved up and moved forward? I tried to pull myself up. I didn’t mean to. It was instinct. When you’re being stretched forward and feel like your limbs are about to be pulled out of the sockets, you cling and pull and make every effort you can. It’s intuitive.

But water-skiing is counter-intuitive, at least when you first try it. And I flopped around in the water. (Or more accurately, in the excruciating few seconds it takes for a person in the boat to say “he’s down!” and the driver to actually decelerate, I was unceremoniously dragged across the surface of the water, still holding on because, you know, it’s intuitive.)

I never got up that day. I tried numerous times, and finally my friends and I gave up. It wasn’t until the next time I tried—about a decade later—that I finally learned to lean back and let the boat do the work. And it was so much better.

That’s a lot like the Christian life. We’re offered resurrection power, the life of Jesus himself inside of us, a supernatural source of strength and fruitfulness. But we can’t experience it if we follow our intuition and instincts. That doesn’t work. We can never pull ourselves into it.

No, the only way to experience the power of God within us is to lean back into him and let him do the work. That doesn’t mean we can sit on the couch and expect miracles—we still have to participate—but we can’t participate with any sense of depending on our own resources. If we do, that’s exactly what we get: our own resources. Which are never enough.

This is why Paul was able to write that God’s power was made perfect in his own weakness. When we depend on our capabilities—our ingenuity, our perseverance, our talents, etc.—we bear the fruit of human effort. That’s okay, but it’s not enough. There’s nothing wrong with ingenuity, perseverance, talent, and that sort of thing, but they are always limited. But when we bring those gifts into the equation and then rely on God and his strength—that’s a different story. We find a different kind of life flowing through us.

This is why we often experience the greatest fruitfulness in times we feel the least capable of accomplishing anything. We carry no pretense of self-reliance into our relationship with God. We know we have to depend on him. And he is free to work in us with our cooperation rather than our competition.

That’s a really counter-intuitive way to live, but it’s ultimately liberating and powerful. We can never pull ourselves up into the gospel—not really, though we may try—but we can lean back into God and let his Spirit carry us where he will.

When we do, we find a quality of life we never would have experienced on our own. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead really does work within us (Ephesians 1:19-20; 3:20). Rather than floundering in the deep, we are carried along the surface of life much more effortlessly. And it really is so much better.

PRAY

Father, we lift up everyone who took the time to participate in Marching in Resurrection with us and ask that You ignite within them the resurrection power You have ordained us to have. Show us all how to use it for Your glory, to make the most of it, to bring souls into Your Kingdom and to live the abundant life You want us to have. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

REFLECT

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. — Galatians 2:20

RESPOND

You will never live the life God has called you to live, the way God has called you to live it, without surrendering to God to such degree that He can live it through you. That's called dying to self, being a living sacrifice, and it's the only portal to resurrection because there's no such thing as resurrection without death. But the life after death is glorious. Jesus saw it and was able to endure all the things that led up to it for the joy set before Him. We pray you will find it as well.