Easter And The Resurrection

It is always amazing to some that there are those who believe in the resurrection. It is also amazing to others that some do not believe in the resurrection. Who are you to believe? The bottom line is, it is up to you. For some, their favorite whipping person is doubting Thomas who could not believe the apostles report that Jesus was resurrected. He said he would not believe unless he could put his finger in the nail prints and his hand in His side. Thus his name was doubting Thomas. For me Thomas is my hero. He refused to believe what others told him. He did not want a second hand faith. He wanted to experience it for himself.

When I graduated from Seminary and went into the parish ministry I had a feeling there was still something missing. I did not know what it was, but it was missing. Then there was the time I found what I was looking for. It was the words of Jesus when He said, “abide in me and I will abide in you”. John 15:4 I wanted to learn how to abide in Jesus. I spent years searching for the “How”. I have never found a theological book that tells how to abide in Jesus. I listened to tapes of sermons by great preachers and there was no “how”; nor did I find any speaker at any conference who ever told us how to access the Presence. I was given Brother Lawrence’s Book on Practicing the Presence. In his book he tells what to do but not how to do it. Others will tell you to do spiritual exercises, pray prayers, meditate, go to church, take communion, go on retreats to the mountains or the sea side. The problem is you can pray prayers and not pray, take Communion and not be in communion, go to church, retreats do spiritual exercises and still not abide. These are what to do but not how to do it.

About thirty years ago I discovered the three Principles of grace. They are Thought, Consciousness and Presence. The Rational head: thought sees the physical seen. Conscious heart: awareness senses the spiritually unseen Presence. The basic guideline is to choose to be either down rationally and out of the Presence or to be up consciously and in by sensing the Presence. When we are down and out, our thoughts create our feelings. When we are up and in, the Peace Presence feeling creates our thoughts. The grace part is to first get into the Presence before doing what God wants rather than the legalist approach to do what God wants in order to get in.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to experience the resurrected Presence is to wonder what difference being down and out or up and in the Presence of a specific issue would make. If you do it, you will get it. When we are able to sense the Spirit of Jesus that God has put into our hearts we will have the same spiritual resurrection experience the Apostles, as well as Thomas, had in that Upper room on a Sunday evening in Jerusalem. Galatians 4:6