Risen Indeed

For almost two years now, I’ve sat in silence. It all started when I allowed lies to take hold. “With your past, you shouldn’t speak.” “Your struggles with sin – immediately disqualifying.” Then came the fear: what if the one who spoke those words sees my writing? What if? What if? What if? And then came the backsliding. “If I’m not suitable for God to use, why fight temptation at all? If I’m too far gone, too broke for Hm to use, why strive to be ready for service? So I closed my Bible, laid down my pen, and filled my life with noise. Noise to drown out the desolation, the pain, the fear, the emptiness. Noise to numb my broken, convicted heart.
To be sure, God kept pursuing me, kept calling me through the noise, above the noise. He kept loving me and making the evidence of his love so clear that I couldn’t help but see it. He kept showing me that his love and forgiveness is for ever. That He knows me and chooses me. Overwhelmed with His love and grace, I’d turn toward Him. But all too soon I’d step back into the sin habits I’d built and begin believing again that this was proof that God could never use someone like me (never mind that He worked in and through me years before I started believing these lies).
Around Thanksgiving of 2025, God’s pursuing love and the light of truth broke through the walls and the darkness that I’d gathered around me, and I began to stumble after Him more earnestly, relearning what it means to walk with God. About a month ago, God brought me to a group of believers to worship with on Wednesday nights. It’s been such an encouragement, turning my focus back to God, His Word, and His leading in the middle of the week when Sunday’s message, and Monday’s vigor for right have begun to seep out.
This past Sunday, Resurrection Day, I was driving to church and thinking on the glorious gift of resurrection. God brought a couple thoughts on the poignancy of the greeting “Christ is risen!” and the subsequent response, “He is risen indeed.”
“Christ is risen!” What joy! Over the years various people have phrased it well: “Death is dead.” “Sin is crushed.” “The grave is defeated.” Christ died and paid our debt, our penalty for sin. He rose again and gave us life. Abundant life, new life, new meaning. He give us purpose, a reconciled relationship with God, and not only reconciled (brought to net zero) – He put His righteousness on us and made us accepted before God. What stunning sacrifice! What glorious grace! What matchless mercy! What love! It’s a marvelous proclamation for the soul steadfast in Christ, for the newly washed, for the victorious Christian.
Then comes the firm, resounding “He is risen indeed.” This is where I want to focus my writing today. If “Christ is risen” is the joyous call of those walking in sweet fellowship with God, the ones whose lamps are burning brightly; then “He is risen indeed” is the echo for the broken, the backslidden, the ‘maybe-I’ve-gone-too-far’s and the desolate. Because God doesn’t run a one-time chance adoption service that disowns you for rebelling, for stumbling in sin, and for broken pasts. He says, “Come and learn of me.” I don’t know about you, but I do not learn overnight.
In the book of First Corinthians, Paul, by God’s inspiration speaks to the church in Corinth about Christ’s resurrection. He speaks of the witnesses who saw Jesus in His resurrected body and then he continues, “And las to f all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not [worthy] to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:8-10).
Dear fellow sinner, redeemed by the grace of God, backslidden, and wondering if there’s a purpose for your broken life and if there’s a way bag: look up to God, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands and purify your heart. Return to the Lord, and He will have mercy upon you, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. …For ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace: the mountains and hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Is. 55).
Now, before anyone begins down the precipice of “let us sin because grace abounds” let me join this promise with the appropriate guidance. Isaiah speaks this to those who are turning to the Lord and seeking them with all their hearts, to the wicked who are forsaking their ways, and the unrighteous ones turning from their sinful thoughts to the Lord. Another way to look at this is that these promises are to the ones with godly sorrow. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of [turned away from]: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, zeal, yea, what revenge! In all these things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:10-11). God says He is near to the broken and contrite heart; not the “sorry I got caught/called out” tearful faces. When we repent to God – turn away from our sin and seek the Lord – God restores us. And yes, we will fall. Yes, we will stumble. But God will raise us back up. Yes, the road back home is difficult and delightful, painful and joyous. It’s a path of dying to self and living abundant life in Christ. It’s a journey of God giving beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning.
Christ is risen indeed! This is our call of hope, our echo of joy, our beam of light. Christ is risen indeed. Let Him set you free from the shackles of sin you’ve wrapped yourself in; lift you out of the pit you stumbled in and then dug deeper. Fill your heart with His Word that you may be spotless, blameless, and without blemish or wrinkle at the day of His coming. May your lamp be lit. May you put on the armor of God daily. May you “let the high praises of God be in [your] mouth, and a two-edged sword in [your] hand … This honor have all His saints” (Ps. 149:6,9b).