You would have to see it to believe it- Quest 52-week 49

I have been a part of some extraordinary moments that you would have to see to believe. 

There was the story of the Lazarus fish…. I promise you - that fish was dead. 

There was the story of the deer that we caught and brought to a campground. 

There was the story of the office space style broken printer that stained the gym floor.

There was the exploding firework over the stadium. 

There was the flaming tennis ball story. 

There was the journey of Travis Tritt. 

Long story short…. I and my friends were really stupid in High School.  Yet, we created some fantastic memories in our time together. 

I love stories that are so impossible that you had to see them to believe it was true. It’s a reminder that the impossible is in fact possible more often than we admit. If you are like me, you love to sit around and share these stories because they are burned into your memory as moments of value… even if they are ridiculous. 

Where you have some struggle is when people are considering faith. For many people, belief is something that comes from seeing or probably more accurately NOT seeing. There are times where we don’t believe that God is showing up or we don’t believe that he is there for us or we don’t believe that he is actually God. 

The scholarly world is clear that Jesus was a real person. There is essentially no argument you can make that he wasn’t. It’s that next jump that gets so many people caught up. They don’t feel like they can SEE Jesus being God so they don’t BELIEVE that Jesus is God. 

That’s why the resurrection is so important. It was the evidence that we needed that Jesus was and is God. He proved who he was in that moment. There was no more need to doubt it or wonder. Jesus defeated death and rose from the grave. 

You might ask - was Jesus dead? The Romans were professional killers. They knew that he was dead. You might ask - what if the disciples were lying? There was zero value to them lying. They were in a desperate situation.

You might ask - why should I believe the followers of Jesus? Two of the people that we can look to are Paul and James. These were two people who doubted Jesus, Paul killed Christians and James was Jesus’ brother, yet came to a belief that he did in fact raise fromt he dead. 

You might ask - why are these people credible? Two of the first people to recognize the tomb was empty were women. At the time they were not looked at as a credible source of evidence, if you were trying to make an argument this was a bad choice to make at the time. Yet, here we are. 

Ultimately I believe that Christ rose from the dead not just because of the evidence I have seen in these moments, but because of the evidence I see in people’s lives. 

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.”

I have faith in Christ and my life is evidence that I have been “risen from the grave” just as Jesus was. I am not the only one. I can tell you story after story, show you person after person who went through the same things. 

It reminds me of Paul and what he said in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, “14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.”

By going from death to life like Jesus, we are evidence of the resurrection. There is power in that because that’s something that people can see…. Which will lead to people believing.