Risen Indeed!

Tom Kingery

Description

Tom Kingery shares meditations on the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and observes that we believe in the resurrection because we believe in Jesus.

Tom Kingery shares meditations on the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in this book that complements his other groundbreaking works focusing on faith.

The book is like a gallery of images and thoughts highlighting Scripture and Christ’s miraculous rising from the dead. Every snapshot delves into resurrection stories from the Gospels, such as the story of the Prodigal Son’s return.

In that story, Jesus gives us a new way of looking at life with its failures and triumphs. When we can see beyond the shortcomings in someone’s life and overcome that dead-to-me attitude, someone’s existence takes on a whole new meaning. Likewise, we can gain a new way of looking at death.

Even when someone is no longer with us, our memories can bring them back to life and they can remain present in very real ways—we can feel resurrection.

Explore life’s unknowns, consider what the world would be like if Jesus had never risen from the dead, and discover why you should never fear dying with the meditations in Risen Indeed!

Sujets

• Spiritual Growth
• Christian Living
• Philosophie et théologie
• Belief
• Resurrection
• Religion
• Trust
• Résurrection (homonymie)

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 04 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664274099
• Langue: English

Extrait

RISEN INDEED!
Meditations on the Resurrection of Christ
 
 
 
 
 
TOM KINGERY
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Tom Kingery.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
 
Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7408-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7409-9 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022914041
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 8/3/2022
CONTENTS
Introduction
Part 1Enter the Gallery
Meditation 1My Son Was Dead and Is Alive Again
Meditation 2Because He Lives
Meditation 3Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!
Meditation 4The Road of Grace
Meditation 5A Death like His
Meditation 6Buried with Him
Meditation 7A Resurrection like His
Meditation 8Now That We Are Reconciled
Meditation 9On the Mountain
Meditation 10Treasure in Earthen Vessels
Meditation 11The Padded Cross
Meditation 12The Empty Cross
Meditation 13The Last Enemy
Meditation 14More Than Conquerors
Meditation 15The Tomb and the Triumph
Part 2The Resurrection in Matthew
Meditation 16“Truly, this man was the son of God”
Meditation 17Dead and Buried
Meditation 18I Know You Are Looking for Jesus
Meditation 19Sitting on the Stone
Meditation 20Risen and Alive
Meditation 21Afraid, Yet Filled with Joy
Meditation 22The Passover Plot
Meditation 23The Big Lie
Meditation 24The Great Truth and the Big Lie (Continued)
Meditation 25You Can’t Stop Them Now!
Meditation 26Kingdom, Power, and Glory
Part 3The Resurrection in Mark
Meditation 27The Empty Tomb
Meditation 28Rolled Away
Meditation 29Stubborn Refusal
Part 4The Resurrection in Luke
Meditation 30Gone
Meditation 31To the Tomb and Back
Meditation 32They Did Not Believe Them
Meditation 33Remember
Meditation 34Stay
Meditation 35To Emmaus and Back
Meditation 36They Still Disbelieved … For Joy
Meditation 37The Entry into Glory
Meditation 38Reappearance
Meditation 39Why Do Doubts Arise in Your Hearts?
Meditation 40Fulfillment
Part 5The Resurrection in John
Meditation 41I Am the Resurrection and the Life
Meditation 42The Raising of Lazarus
Meditation 43Those Who Believe in Me Will Live
Meditation 44Firstborn among Many
Meditation 45The Tomb
Meditation 46Convicted and Called
Meditation 47Cast the Net
Meditation 48The Net Was Not Torn
Meditation 49A Walk on the Beach
Meditation 50Could It Be
Conclusion
One Last Meditation
INTRODUCTION
I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
—JOHN 11:25–26
The resurrection is three things: It is proof. It is power. And it is promise.
PROOF
The resurrection proves that Jesus is Lord. He is who He said He was in John 11: “I am the resurrection and the life” (v. 25). It proves that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. It proves God’s love for us, as in “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The resurrection of Jesus proves to us that we need not doubt, that we can trust what we believe, and that we can have confidence in our faith.
In Acts chapter 17, Paul was in Athens. He testified about the one true God and said that everyone needed to repent because “he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (17:31). That assurance is the validation of the resurrection in a believer’s heart. And it is our assurance in the judgment!
Earlier in Acts, Paul testified that after Jesus fulfilled what the prophets had written of the Messiah by dying on the cross and then being laid in a tomb: “God raised him up from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people” (Acts 13:30–31). The fact that there were witnesses of the risen and living body of Jesus reveals the proof we need. And we can be witnesses too.
Some will say that they were perpetuating a lie. They might say, “Jesus had not really risen.” “He had not come to life again.” But the witnesses were willing to die for this truth. People would not die for a lie! You would think that someone would have come clean somewhere along the line just to clear their conscience and admit that they were speaking falsehoods, perpetuating a hoax. But the changed lives of all those disciples, and those who believed because of their witness, and even of my faith today is a testimony to the reality of the resurrection. And you can testify too.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time” (1 Corinthians 15:3–6). “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (v. 8). And He is here for us today!
What do we do with this truth? Do we think of this testimony as just a part of a “story”? Is it fiction? Is it just a part of a plot to make themselves look good? Many of those early believers died for what they claimed to be true. And what nonbelievers want to do is deny their testimony. But there was a way they could have proved it was a lie: produce the dead body of Jesus!
Without the dead body of Jesus, the resurrection cannot be proven false! The resurrection is the proof that Jesus is the Christ! Whatever doubts we may have because it is supposedly “too good to be true,” or just too amazing, can be overcome by trusting in the testimony of the first witnesses, then, the witness of those who believed their testimony, and of those who believed in theirs , and … of mine ! I believe it. I trust the testimony of the almost two thousand years of believers who have trusted it. And you can trust it too!
The resurrection proves that Jesus is Lord!
POWER
The resurrection is a power in my life, and, in the heart of every believer! There is power in someone’s testimony as they give witness to the glory of God in their experience of Christ. Paul said, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10–11).
What is the “power of his resurrection?” Look here: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 KJV). Consider the power of a faith in Christ that can say with Paul:
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered” (Psalm 44:22).
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to