Now in the Bible, to believe is not just to head-acknowledge something. In the Bible when you believe, you believe with your heart. You speak it with your mouth, and you live it out with your life. So God invites every person who's lived in bondage to sin, bondage to demons, and in fear of death and what might lie beyond it. He invites every person to receive Christ as their saviour, to receive Him into their life, and to those persons Jesus said: who received Him, He gave power to become a child of God.
What happens, the spirit of God comes in you, and the same mighty spirit that raised Christ from the dead, lives in you; and it's that spirit that will quicken your body. I believe if you walk with God, you have every reason to expect you'll be very healthy, and very blessed. You'll live in the life of the Holy Ghost. I believe you'll live a great life. You'll live an overcoming life. You'll live a victorious life. When others are down, you don't go down. You bounce back very quick, because the spirit of God's in you. The truth of resurrection is not just applying to physical death. It applies to death of every kind, so we have something happens in the family, we lose someone. We can bounce back from it, because we have a hope in resurrection, and the power of God to help us. We have the death of a dream, something we'd invested our life in, and it falls over and goes down. We don't need to go down with it, because we have this resurrection power, that can cause us to rise in our spirit again, with confidence in God's ability to get us going again.
Listen - what a great hope we have in Jesus Christ. What a great hope. So I want you to read those verses again, and start to think about what happened on those tremendous days, when Jesus died on the cross, and the earth shook, and the graves opened, and access was made to God. And then when Jesus rose from the dead, so also rose many people from the dead, and Jesus Christ showed His total victory, and total authority, over everything. He says: all authority of heaven and earth is given to me. Now go and change the world.
I want you just to close your eyes for a moment. I wonder is there any person here today, and as you've come here to this Easter Service, and you perhaps wondered about life, wondered about just your future, perhaps there's areas you're struggling within, in bondage to, fears or maybe there's areas of addictions or habits or things that are gripping your soul. It doesn't have to be that way. Jesus has made a way for you. Jesus has a made a way for you. It's called faith, believing and trusting in Him. You'll never know until you commit your life to Him, how much He will change you and turn your life around. How much He will change you. God loves you deeply, passionately. He is willing to help you.
But He requires a step from you, a step to walking with Him. And so today, I wonder is there any person here who's not a Christian yet - a Christian is a person who's become a follower of Jesus Christ, starting to walk with Him, and live life according to the life that Jesus gives him, according to the ways of Jesus, a wonderful life, a blessed life - so a Christian's not someone who just comes to church. That doesn't change you. It can help you, but it's only a decision, consciously day by day, to walk with God. That's what changes you, and it starts with inviting Jesus Christ to become your personal saviour.
I wonder is there anyone here today, right at that point; you'd like to become a Christian; you want to give your life to Jesus Christ? Today would be a great Easter to do that. When we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead, how wonderful if you too could spiritually arise and be changed. I wonder if there's anyone today and you're living with difficulties in your life, challenges in your life, perhaps failures in your life, but today you know that God was speaking to you, that you don't have to live there, that you can arise above it, through just simple repentance and reaching out, and beginning to walk with Him again? If you know God was speaking to you that way, would you raise your hand, say God's wanting me to have a fresh start this Easter. God bless - many people wanting a fresh start this Easter. It's wonderful to do that, because Easter we celebrate new beginnings, be great to do that, start again, start afresh, let God give you a fresh start.