They Rose

They Rose

Good Morning

Please stand with me and lift up your bible and repeat after me.

This is my Bible.

I am what it says I am.

I can do what it says I can do.

I am going to learn more of how to be what it says I can be.

Today I will learn more of the word of God.

The indestructible, never ending, living word Of God.

I will never be the same.

I will never be the same.

In Jesus Name

Turn with me in your bibles to Matthew 27:51-53.

Say, “Amen” when you are there. Let’s read together.

51:Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split,

52: and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;

53: and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Today I am going to share about getting excited about life and rising up in a time of turmoil.

Here is a story for you from Godswork.org

A boy was sitting in a park bench with one hand resting on an open Bible. He was loudly exclaiming his praise to God.

"Hallelujah! Hallelujah! God is great!" he yelled without worrying whether anyone heard him or not.

Along came a man who had recently completed some studies at a local university. Feeling himself very enlightened in the ways of truth and very eager to show this enlightenment, he asked the boy about the source of his joy.

"Hey" asked the boy in return with a bright laugh, "Don't you have any idea what God is able to do? I just read that God opened up the waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle."

The enlightened man laughed lightly, sat down next to the boy and began to try to open the boy’s eyes to the "realities" of the miracles of the Bible. He said, "That can all be very easily explained. Modern studies

have shown that the Red Sea in that area was only 10 inches deep at that time. It was no problem for the Israelites to wade across."

The boy was stumped. His eyes wandered from the man back to the Bible lying open in his lap. The man, content that he had enlightened a poor naive young person to the finer points of scientific insight turned to go.

Scarcely had he taken two steps when the boy began to rejoice and praise louder than before. The man turned to ask the reason for this resumed jubilation.

"Wow! Exclaimed the boy happily, "God is greater than I thought! Not only did he lead the whole nation of Israel through the Red Sea, He topped it off by drowning the whole Egyptian army in 10 inches of water!"

Sometimes we don’t see all that there is in life. In the verse from James chapter 27, I learned that when Jesus died on the cross, a whole bunch of people rose from their graves and went out into the city and let people know about Him.

Have you let anyone know about God recently?

A lot of us will say that, “I cannot let people know about God because I am just not that kind of person.

I don’t go around letting people know about the relationship that someone like me can have with God because that is for evangelists, pastors, or missionaries.”

I will never forget when I had to share about my relationship with God with a man from China. It was the beginning of my entry into ministry in correctional facilities.

I was an assistant chaplain at a correctional facility in NE Pennsylvania. The population was comprised of local county inmates, Federal inmates, and INS inmates. The men and women that were INS inmates were people that were in the United States from other countries that were being deported because of immigration issues or crimes. I met a man from China who I will never forget.

He was in the United States as a student and had gotten involved in the drug trade in New York City. I will never forget what happened. He asked for council about religion and when we met, he asked me why I believed. I shared why and asked him why he wanted to know. He told me that he had been reading the bible and wanted be reborn.

He said he wanted to rise up from being a dead man and start a new life.

Does that sound like something that may be in our lives today?

Do we need to get back to some of the basics of life?