Jesus Is Alive...

Jesus isn't in heaven b/c he went there when he died. We have this thought in our heads that death leads to heaven, which I suppose is true in some regards.

I've recently been hit with the thought that Jesus isn't dead. He is in heaven, but he isn't dead. He rose again. He is in heaven, alive and well. He ascended in life, he still lives.

I find myself all too often praying to the image of Jesus on the cross, the dead or dying Jesus. The problem is that he isn't dead or dying. He is alive and glorious.

I feel like the distinction is between defeated and victorious. If we pray to a defeated saviour, a saviour still hanging on the cross, then our prayers will be defeated, weak, and powerless.

If we pray to victorious saviour, a saviour who in his glory trampled all over anything that could be coming against us, then our prayers will be powerful and bold and will move mountains, because that is was Jesus did with his resurrection.

Death couldn't hold him down. God made a spectacle of evil with the cross.

Col 2:15 says:
"nailing it to the cross, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him."

The Message puts it like this:
"He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets."

I put it like this:
"Jesus took a huge dump on all the false powers, the demons and their minions, triumphing over them on the cross, smearing the poop on their faces with the resurrection."

Sorry for the vulgar image, but something has to wake us up to the fact that Jesus rules and Satan drools.

Jesus put them to shame, not in a wimpy, meek, boring Jesus of the movies kind of way, but in a powerful, I rule the world and I'm taking it back for my people, so get the hell out of here kind of way.

Jesus is alive. He is not beaten down and broken. He is victorious, he uses demons as shovels to clean out horse stalls, he cleans toilet bowls with them.

He has utter and complete power over any evil. There is nothing they can do to stop him.

That is, aside from convincing Jesus' body, his action in this world, that none of this is true, that Jesus is still on the cross, that evil still has power.

I just got hit with this thought.

If the church, who is Jesus' body, still envisions Jesus on the cross, then where will his church be? All we will know to do is act like people who are still nailed to the cross.

The problem is that Jesus isn't still on the cross. He is victorious, all things are under his feet, subject to him. He rules the world with power.

If the church, who is Jesus' body, envisions Jesus as being over all things, then where will his church be?

Father, help us to repent of our low view of you and in turn of ourselves. Help us to live a life of victory, a life to destroying the works of the devil. Father, help us to realize that our ministry is the same as your ministry. We are to continue the works that you did on this earth, as if you never left.

All too often in the gospels, Jesus is described as preaching the gospel, follow by a list of these things: heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse leapers, cast out demons, feed the poor, free the captive.

How are we to do Jesus ministry, as listed above, while believing that we can't, that we are still nailed to the cross, that evil is triumphing and we can do nothing about it?

We can't. But what we can do it realize that is a lie, that Jesus won, that we share in his victory, and that is the ministry that we are called to.

Father, let us realize this. Renew our minds with your reality...