Transform your everyday with Rezz Reality

Good Friday, March 29, 2024

Hello, Friend

Welcome to ‘The Smart’ … I pray that Holy Week and this weekend are rich with meaning and life for you. We all need a fresh touch of life for 2024!

In this issue

  • Transform your everyday with rezz reality

  • The third day was the first day of a new creation — G.K. Chesterton quote

  • JesusSmartX ep 308 — Rise in resurrection reality

  • P.S. — Resources

Transform your everyday with rezz reality

Right here! Right now!

Resurrection isn't just a distant event. It's for now!

Remember Lazarus? Sick and gone for 4 days. Yet Jesus brought him back. Do an immersive reading of John 11.17-44.

Martha, resigned to a future resurrection, got a shock. Let’s call it a Jesus Shock! He radially shifted her faith, revealing the glory of God right then and there.

You see, Jesus isn't stuck in the past. He’s not stuck in the future either.

He's here with us in our dying present, regenerating things and giving us samples of what the future holds. Bits of the Millennium and the New Heavens and New Earth dripping into Our Now.

Healing, regeneration, deliverance, displacing dark powers, resurrection. Jesus’ breath can reach every area of life. All as a witness of his Complete Kingdom on the horizon!

Like Martha, a thunderbolt from Jesus can jam our disbelief system. A new belief set point from Jesus will replace it. Resurrection life isn't just a far-off promise — it's breaking into our lives in The NOW!

Jesus: "When you go, preach this: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead to life again, heal those who have skin diseases, and force demons out of people. I give you these powers freely, so help other people freely." Matthew 10.7-8, New Century Version

Back to the present!

So much of the renewing work Jesus does empowers us to see things in a new and living way.

Martha's view of resurrection was confined to the future. Let's be real—it's a common outlook for many of us.

But as we open up to Jesus, the future bursts into the present!

In Hebrews 6.4-5, we're urged to experience enlightenment, partake in the Holy Spirit, and taste the goodness of God's word and the future's power.

Tasting the "powers of the age to come" isn't a too-much-to-believe idea. It could be our everyday experience as authentic, developing apprentices of the Kingdom! In truth, it should be.

Think about it. Jesus was asking Martha and those within earshot to grasp a fresh perspective through faith. In Hebrews, it's highlighted that "by faith we understand that the worlds (ages) were framed by the Word of God" (11:3). This faith-based understanding of creation extends to all aspects of the Kingdom of Jesus. It’s how the World of Jesus works. It goes way beyond mere natural understanding or unfortunately much of Church Think.

It’s time to get coached up by Jesus. Ever pondered the difference between the normative Christian life and just the average Christian experience?

Do you want what Jesus wants for you? “Live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4.1 NIV).

When Jesus proclaims, "I am the resurrection and the life," it’s personal. It’s him. He is the resurrection. And it’s a present possibility. He challenged Martha to see that the resurrection is on!

So go ahead, immerse yourself in John 11.17-44. But read it like a mirror. Jesus' modeling and teaching show us that all things are possible with God.

Take in the Written Word until … until you hear the Living Word speak to you. Then faith comes alive.

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The third day was the first day of a new creation — G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), described as an "absent-minded, overgrown elf of a man," (!) was more than meets the eye. An English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and critic of literature and art, his eccentricity knew no bounds. Whether it was delighting children at parties by catching buns in his mouth. Or laughing heartily at his own jokes.

Many hail Chesterton as the finest writer of the 20th century. His book, The Everlasting Man, played a key role in leading a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to embrace Christianity.

Here’s Chesterton on the “first day of a new creation” …

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn. —G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Some of our reading needs to be a century or more back. Lest we beach ourselves in the shallows of our time.

Rise in resurrection reality: transform your everyday | JesusSmartX Ep 308

In this episode I explore the opportunity to embrace the Resurrection Reality of Jesus Christ in our everyday. Christ can breathe new life into relationships, work, finances, wellness, and more. You and I can sync our lives with God's Story and Glory.

Listen to episode 308 of the JesusSmartX podcast. Available on all major podcast platforms too!

Here’s the show notes page to take this episode further.

Would you think of 1 or 2 contacts who would appreciate receiving The Smart? I've created a couple of free eBooks, and I'd love to give them to you for potential referrals who subscribe. You can let them know there’s no need to worry about loathed spam. Look for details on how we can do this!

He makes all things new! Appreciate you. See P.S.

Brian Del Turco
JesusSmart.com

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