Resurrection and Life

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 96, Resurrection and Life.

Listen to these words of Jesus — let them settle in: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." John 11:25.

Notice what He said. Not "I will perform a resurrection." Not "I will arrange one, someday, somewhere." He said — I am. The resurrection is not an event He schedules for a distant future. The resurrection is a person. And that person has a name: Jesus. Our hope is not a date circled on a calendar — it is a face. It is Someone who is present, right now, right here.

And notice who He said it to. He said it to Martha — a woman four days into her grief. Four days. She had already wept until the tears ran out. She had already buried her brother. In the world's eyes, the situation was sealed, finished, over. And it is precisely in that moment — in the heart of loss, at the bottom of the pit — that Jesus opens His mouth and makes the greatest declaration in human history. He does not wait for life to get better before showing up. He shows up inside the pain.

And what does He say about death? Though he die, yet shall he live. Sit with that. In Jesus, death is demoted from a period to a comma. A pause in the sentence — not the end of the story. What looked like the final word is, in Jesus, only a transition. That changes everything. It changes how you face grief. It changes how you face the things in your life that look dead right now — the relationship that didn't survive, the dream that was buried, the hope that seemed to go out like a flame.

And don't leave it all for someday. Jesus says He is the life — present tense. Eternal life is not only a future inheritance waiting on the other side of death. It begins now. The moment you believe, the life of God is already moving in you. Today. Not when you die. Today.

And then — and this is what undoes me about this passage — after saying all of that, Jesus doesn't just move on. He turns to Martha and asks a question. A direct, personal, impossible-to-dodge question: do you believe this? Not "does humanity believe it?" Not "does your tradition teach it?" You — do you believe this? The most beautiful doctrine in the world becomes faith only when someone answers it. Personally. With their own name on it.

So today, I want to invite you to do exactly that. Think of a situation in your life that looks dead. A relationship. A dream. A door that seems permanently closed. Something that, in your eyes and in the world's eyes, is finished, gone, with no way forward. And this morning — out loud, for real, not just in your head — answer Jesus. Say: "Yes, Lord, I believe." And hand Him that situation. Not as a magic formula. As a genuine, deliberate, courageous act of faith — the answer of someone who believes that Jesus is exactly who He said He is.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.