If there’s anybody in the world who doesn’t need to be institutionalized, it’s the living, resurrected Jesus Christ! A dead Jesus needs religious institutions to keep His memory alive, but a relationship with the living Jesus is ever vibrant.

To say yes to the risen Jesus Christ is to lay down our plans, desires, choices, and concerns and let Him take direct control. To confine the resurrection of Jesus to history is to decapitate Christianity. Anything that hinders members of the body of Christ from maintaining direct and obedient connection with the Head quenches the Spirit.

The living Jesus should never be confined to a program or ritual. He wants to personally interact with you. He directly approaches your heart. Few people want a friendship that sticks to a pre-set program. Genuine friendship with Jesus can’t be programmed.

The resurrection of Jesus shouldn’t be an annual celebration but a daily, moment-by-moment experience. It only happened once. Now the risen Jesus is everywhere knocking on doors to enter human hearts.

If Christians would stop acting like Jesus is dead and gone, we’d see an amazing spiritual awakening! What good does it do to say Jesus is alive if you act like He’s dead? According to the Bible, Jesus’ tomb is empty and He’s living inside of His followers, but too often, the way Christians act makes it look like Jesus’ followers are empty and He’s dead in His tomb.

When Christianity changed from a spiritual movement into religious organizations, it went from ekklesia to church. If Jesus’ tomb is truly empty, church services should be full of His glorious presence and power. Christians desperately need to go beyond hearing sermons about Jesus and begin to hear directly from Him.

If you will read the Bible with a sense of being there in the events that occur, it will fill you with awe and wonder! Faith hopes for and expects the best. Fear worries about and dreads the worst.

Lectures on
The wind of the Spirit
Are nothing like
Sailing & soaring
With the wind!

If you’re
Unwilling to walk
With Jesus
It does little good
To hear a talk
About Him.

Spiritual exploration
Without biblical verification
Often leads to deception.