resurrection | Craig T. Owens

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Thursdays With Oswald—What Prayer Does In Us

June 2, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

What Prayer Does In Us

Prayer is the point where the reality of God merges with human life. Until we are born from above, prayer with us is honestly nothing more than a mere exercise; but in all our Lord’s teaching and in His own personal life, as well as in the emphasis laid on prayer by the Holy Ghost after He had gone, prayer is regarded as the work (see John 14:11-13). …

If prayer is the highest reach of communion possible between Almighty God and the Son of Man, what part ought prayer to play in our lives? …

Prayer is not meant to develop us, but to develop the life of God in us after new birth.

From The Psychology Of Redemption

In another lesson, Chambers reminds us that prayer is easy for us because it cost Jesus so much to make it possible for us.

Jesus knew the value of prayer, which is why it was an essential priority all throughout His earthly life. Now we have access to the same Almighty God through the name of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is interceding for us, but we don’t have to stop there—we should never stop there!—because Christ’s death and resurrection makes a way for us to go right into Almighty God’s presence.

Prayer is powerful! Prayer brings the life of God right down into our own souls.

So… what part ought prayer to play in your life?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: crucifixion, Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, intercession, Jesus Christ, new life, Oswald Chambers, prayer, resurrection. Leave a Comment »

12 Quotes From “The Place Of Help”

April 13, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

As always, any Oswald Chambers book I read is thoroughly highlighted. There is always so much great content! On this blog, I have a weekly series called “Thursdays With Oswald” where I share quotes and thoughts from his book I’m currently reading. Be sure to check that out. Below are just a few of the quotes I noted from The Place Of Help. (By the way, you can read my review of this book by clicking here.)

“This is the age when education is placed on the very highest pinnacle. In every civilized country we are told that if we will educate the people and give them better surroundings, we shall produce better characters. Such talk and such theories stir aspirations, but they do not work out well in reality. The kingdom within must be adjusted first before education can have its true use. To educate an unregenerate man is but to increase the possibility of cultured degradation.”

“Not what the disciple says in public prayer, not what he preaches from pulpit or platform, not what he writes on paper or in letters, but what he is in his heart which God alone knows, determines God’s revelation of Himself to him. Character determines revelation (see Psalm 18:24-26).”

“Our Lord never gives private illuminations to special favorites. His way is ever twofold: the development of character, and the descent of Divine illumination through the Word of God.”

“The voice of the Lord listened to in darkness is so entrancing that the finest of earth’s voices are never afterwords mistaken for the voice of the Lord.”

“Jesus Christ distinctly stated that He came to do the will of His Father. ‘I must work the works of Him that sent Me.’ His first obedience was not to the needs of men, but to the will of God. He nowhere chose the altar of His sacrifice, God chose it for Him. He chose to make His life a willing and obedient sacrifice that His Father’s purpose might be fulfilled. … ’For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake,’ as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:5. We are the servants of men, says Paul, not primarily because their needs have arrested us, but because Jesus Christ is our Lord.”

“If you become a necessity to a soul you have got out of God’s order, your great need as a worker is to be a friend of the Bridegroom. Your goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to itself, it ought simply to be a magnet to draw others to Jesus.”

“Suppose you talk about depending on God and how wonderful it is, and then others see that in your own immediate concerns you do not depend on Him a bit, but on your own wits, it makes them say, ‘Well, after all, it’s a big pretense, there is no Almighty Christ to depend on anywhere, it is all mere sentiment.’ The impression left is that Jesus Christ is not real to you.”

“The highest Divine love is not only exhibited in the extreme amazement of the tragedy of Calvary, but in the laying down of the Divine life through the thirty years at Nazareth, through the three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, and furthermore in the long pre-incarnate years (cf. Revelation 13:8).”

“The Cross is the supreme moment in Time and Eternity, and it is the concentrated essence of the very nature of the Divine love. … The Self-expenditure of God for His enemies in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, becomes the great bridge over the gulf of sin whereby human love may cross over and be embraced by the Divine love, the love that never fails.”

“Christian experience does not mean we have thought through the way God works in human lives by His grace, or that we are able to state theologically that God gives the Holy Ghost to them that ask Him—that may be Christian thinking, but it is not Christian experience. Christian experience is living through all this by the marvelous power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost working in me does not produce wonderful experiences that make people say ‘What a wonderful life that man lives’; the Holy Ghost working in me makes me a passionate, devoted, absorbed lover of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“It is not the baptism of the Holy Ghost that changes men, but the power of the Ascended Christ coming into men’s lives by the Holy Ghost that changes men. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is the evidence of the Ascended Christ.”

“There is only one Lover of the Lord Jesus and that is the Holy Ghost; when we receive the Holy Ghost He turns us into passionate human lovers of Jesus Christ. Then out of our lives will flow those rivers of living water that heal and bless, and we spend and suffer and endure in patience all because of One and One only.”

More quotes from this book coming soon…

Life Or Death?

April 4, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

Since Jesus predicted His death on a Cross, and His resurrection from the dead three days later, and since that really happened(!), I think that it would be wise to consider the other words Jesus said!

Here’s an important one—The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

It’s a pretty clear distinction: One way brings death and the other way brings life. But not just any kind of life.

The Greeks had three words for “life”—

Bios from which we get our word biology. We can see when something is alive because of its biological growth.
Psuche from which we get our word psychology. Plants might be biologically alive, but they don’t have the psychological life of a human.
Zoe. This is the word Jesus used in John 10:10. It’s the word that means “life force” or better stated it’s God’s life.

God is a Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. When God created humans, we were created in His “trinity” image—Let Us make man in Our image (Genesis 1:26). Adam was created with bios, psuche, and zoe life. God told Adam and Eve that if they sinned, they would die (Genesis 2:17). When they did eat that forbidden fruit, they remained biologically and psychologically alive, but the zoe life force was cut off.

Jesus came to restore that! He came to bring us back to the state God originally intended for us, which meant He had to go to the Cross to become our sin, so that we could be forgiven and brought back to life.

Placing your faith in Jesus Christ’s work on the Cross means a complete about-face. The devil wants to steal from you, kill you, and destroy your soul for eternity. But Jesus came that you could have zoe in a way that was above-and-beyond, super-abundant, extraordinary and uncommon!

To get this life, Jesus asks us to do something that He did—If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me (Matthew 16:24).

Jesus isn’t calling for our hands and feet to be nailed to a wooden Cross. But He is calling for our selfish thoughts to be crucified (Matthew 16:23), and for us to give no more attention to our old sinful life.

I think this passage in Romans captures that thought so well—

Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the Cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in His life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, He took sin down with Him, but alive He brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God. (Romans 6:6-14)

The choice is yours: the rip-off, destruction, and death the devil offers OR the abundant, overflowing, extraordinary, more-than-is-needed, zoe life that Jesus offers.

Life or death. Your choice.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Adam & Eve, biology, bios, Calvary Assembly of God, crucifixion, devil, eternal life, Jesus Christ, psuche, psychology, resurrection, satan, sin, video, Vimeo, zoe. Leave a Comment »

9 Quotes From “Your Joy Will Turn To Sorrow”

March 30, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

Although Your Joy Will Turn To Sorrow is intended to be read each morning and evening of Holy Week (check out my book review here), the content is so good that it will benefit you anytime you decide to read it! Here are some quotes that especially caught my attention.

“The only Savior who truly saves, only saves through suffering. The Cross was the only means of making us sinners right before a holy God. Our salvation was purchased with suffering, and it will be sealed and preserved with suffering (James 1:2-4), not comfort. We are promised comfort in the Christian life (2 Corinthians 1:4), but not the cheap, temporal imitation we’ve grown accustomed to in our modern world.” —Marshall Segal

“Jesus did not come to purchase the approval of others. No, He ‘was despised and rejected by men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as One from whom men hide their faces He was despised’ (Isaiah 53:3). Why? Because it is God’s approval we desperately need. And God’s approval doesn’t come by popular opinion, but by divine intervention—the substitution of His own Son in our place.” —Marshall Segal

“The irony of Mark 14 is that Judas could see the value of the ointment rolling down Jesus’ head, but he couldn’t see the value of Jesus. He was a pawnbroker with cataracts. That’s why he took such offense at the woman. The woman, on the other hand, could see both the value of the ointment and the value of Jesus. That’s why she broke the flask.” —Jonathan Bowers

“No one understands better than God how difficult it can be for a human to embrace the will of God. And no human has suffered more in embracing the will of God the Father than God the Son. When Jesus calls us to follow Him, whatever the cost, He is not calling us to do something He is either unwilling to do or is never done Himself.” —Jon Bloom

“So, now, we say with an entirely different meaning, let His blood be on us, not defiantly as the crowds that crucified Him, but desperately—with gratitude and hope and adoration—as those who depend wholly on His sacrifice. Jesus, let Your blood be on us. Let it cover us. Let the blood that flows from Your head, Your hands, Your feet wash over us and cleanse us from all our iniquity. We proclaim Jesus’ death. We rejoice in his death, not because we believe He was a fraud or a lunatic, but because it is by His death, by His wounds, by His blood that we are healed.” —Marshall Segal

“Jesus spoke of this joy as He faced the torture of Good Friday. He faced denial, faced betrayal, faced beatings, faced splinters and nails and spears—He could not stop talking about joy! Only joy would keep Him going. Joy was on His mind, joy was on His tongue, and joy was drawing Him, not away from suffering, but into it (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus went to the Cross for joy: to buy joy, create joy, and offer joy. As the world celebrated the savage killing of God, out of this sea of foaming rebel hostility emerged a blood-bought, inextinguishable joy.

“If the killing of the Author of life could not extinguish this joy Jesus speaks about, nothing can—and nothing ever will. No opposition from the world, no opposition to the gospel, and no cultural despising of Christ will overcome the resurrection joy of Jesus.” —Tony Reinke

“If Christ is still dead, death reigns, and all our joys our vain. So hoard every plastic Easter egg you find, because whatever you find inside is all the joy you have to grab. Or, as Paul says, ‘If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ (1 Corinthians 15:32). But if death is dead, and if the dead are raised—if Christ is risen from the dead!—brothers and sisters, let us feast and celebrate, for the daunting light of our inextinguishable and inexhaustible eternal pleasures have broken into the darkness, offering us a life of joy in Christ that cannot fade or rust or be stolen away!” —Tony Reinke

“Easter has now become our annual dress rehearsal for that great coming Day. When our perishable bodies will put on the imperishable. When the mortal finally puts on immortality. When we join in the triumph song with the prophets and the apostles, ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ (Hosea 13:14; 1 Corinthians 15:55).” —David Mathis

“Indeed, even agony will turn to glory, but Easter doesn’t suppress our pain. It doesn’t minimize our loss. It bids our burdens stand as they are, in all their weight, with all their threats. And this risen Christ, with the brilliance of the indestructible life in His eyes, says, ‘These too I will claim in the victory. These too will serve your joy. These too, even these, I can make an occasion for rejoicing. I have overcome, and you will more than conquer.’

“Easter is not an occasion to repress whatever ails you and put on a happy face. Rather, the joy of Easter speaks tenderly to the pains that plague you. Whatever loss you lament, whatever burden weighs you down, Easter says, ‘It will not always be this way for you. The new age has begun. Jesus has risen, and the Kingdom of the Messiah is here. He has conquered death and sin and hell. He is alive and on His throne. And He is putting your enemies, all your enemies, under His feet.’” —David Mathis

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, blood, Book of James, book review, Calvary, Cross, death, Easter, eternal life, Good Friday, Gospel of Mark, Hebrews, Holy Week, Hosea, Isaiah, Jesus Christ, joy, obedience, pain, prophesy, quotes, resurrection, Savior, suffering, victory, worship. Leave a Comment »

Your Sorrow Will Turn To Joy (book review)

March 29, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

Holy Week is always a good time to slow down to take a closer look at the events leading up to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. I never want to “go through the motions” and miss out on some new revelation of all that Jesus did for us. An excellent companion for this journey is Your Sorrow Will Turn To Joy by the writers at Desiring God.

This book covers the eight days of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday. Each day has an insightful reading selection for both the morning and evening. The authors pulled together the accounts from all four of the Gospels, to offer unique insights and observations on each step of Christ’s journey to the Cross, the grave, and the empty tomb. As I read, I marveled again at the amazing love God showered on us!

The good folks at Desiring God have made this book available free of charge in its ebook format. Otherwise, the paperback can be purchased at a nominal cost.

Pick up a copy and read through it on the next Holy Week, and I promise you will see something fresh about the joy that Christ’s finished work on Calvary brings to those who will believe in Him!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, Calvary, crucifixion, Desiring God, Easter, ebook, Good Friday, Holy Week, Jesus Christ, John Piper, joy, Maundy Thursday, Palm Sunday, resurrection, Resurrection Sunday, salvation, sorrow. 2 Comments »

3 Possibilities For An Empty Tomb

March 28, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

Last week we explored the validity of the evidence for the accuracy of the biblical accounts for the life of Jesus (you can check that out here). You might be one who says, “Okay, I think Jesus was a good Man, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to believe that anyone could be raised from the dead after three days.” I think that’s a reasonable thing to explore…

If the tomb where Jesus was placed is really empty, then there are only three possibilities for us to consider.

(1) Jesus didn’t really die.

It’s hard to imagine anyone could go through the intense torture Jesus did prior to His crucifixion unscathed.
The crucifixion process itself is one of the most gruesome forms of execution man has ever invented.
As a result, forensic science shows that Jesus most likely died of a heart attack. The mention in John 19:34 of the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s body is an indication of the cardiac distress His body experienced.
Men who were followers of Jesus handled His dead body, and undoubtedly would have checked for any signs life (John 19:38-40).
A Roman centurion reported to the Roman governor Pilate that Jesus had in fact died (Mark 15:43-45).
Extra-biblical historians, many of whom were unfriendly to Jews and Christians, reported Christ’s death as an historical fact.

(2) Jesus didn’t really rise.

Some have claimed that Christ’s followers “saw” Jesus only in a grief-induced hallucination. The problem is, Jesus appeared to individuals, small groups, and large groups multiple times and in multiple settings over the course of 40 days (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
At least one of Christ’s closest followers said he wouldn’t be convinced by verbal testimony alone, but needed to touch Christ’s body for Himself (John 20:24-28).
The disciples were afraid and lacked any military training that would have allowed them to get past the trained soldiers guarding the tomb (Matthew 27:62-66; 28:11-15).

(3) Jesus really did die on a Cross and was raised back to life.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes rightly said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Real-life cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace explains how detectives use abductive reasoning to examine all of the evidence and infer to the most reasonable explanation from that. As a result, Detective Wallace says about this third explanation:

“The last explanation (although it is a miraculous, supernatural explanation) suffers from the least number of liabilities and deficiencies. If we simply enter into the investigation without a pre-existing bias against anything supernatural, the final explanation accounts for all of the evidence without any difficulty. The final explanation accounts for the evidence most simply and most exhaustively, and it is logically consistent…. The final explanation is also superior to all other accounts (given that it does not suffer from all the problems we see with the other explanations).” —J. Warner Wallace, Alive

The truth is Jesus loved you so much that He had to die for you. He had to pay the penalty for your sins. And God loved His Son so much, that He raised Him back to life. Jesus can live in you now, and you can live with Him forever, if you will simply believe what He did for you on Calvary.

Jesus left an empty tomb behind to show how powerful His love and life is!

Alive (book review)

March 22, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

I love the detective-like approach that cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace brings to Christian apologetics! Wallace presents reasonable evidence to lead to a reasonable faith in the biblical claims about Jesus. A quick read to prepare you for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday is Alive.

The material in this short 48-page booklet is taken from Wallace’s book Cold-Case Christianity, and is a just-the-facts look at the resurrection account of Jesus Christ. This booklet will prepare you to give a good answer to anyone who asks you about your faith.

These booklets are sold in a 10-pack, so buy a pack and pass them out to your friends who want to learn how to defend their Christian faith, or give one to a friend or coworker who is still skeptical about the accounts in the Bible surrounding Christ’s death and resurrection. All who read Alive will learn something they didn’t know before.

A great read!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: apologetic, book review, Christianity, crucifixion, evidence, J. Warner Wallace, Jesus Christ, resurrection. 3 Comments »

4 Ways To Evaluate Biblical Evidence

March 21, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

To be honest, if someone hasn’t heard the biblical account of the life of Jesus Christ before, it can sound quite fantastic! Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, performed miracles no one had seen before, died a horrific martyr’s death, was raised back to life three days later, and then ascended back into heaven until He returns to Earth again.

But as fantastic as this sounds, there is still enough evidence to reasonably believe it’s all true. An unreasonable faith believes in something in spite of the evidence; a blind faith believes in something without any evidence; and reasonable faith believes in something because of the evidence.

The Bible gives us eyewitness testimony about the life of Jesus which we can matter-of-factly evaluate.

In a modern-day court of law, eyewitness testimony is evaluated on…

…the determination that the witnesses were actually present.
…the ability to corroborate their testimony.
…the consistency of their testimony over time.
…any biases they have that would cause them to exaggerate or misrepresent their testimony.

Let’s consider the testimony of the four Gospel writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

(1) Were The Eyewitnesses Present?

Luke is considered a credible historian, even by modern standards. He wrote the book of Acts following the ascension of Jesus into Heaven. Because he did not mention three major events in Jewish history (the Jewish uprising, the Roman siege of Jerusalem in response to that uprising, and the Roman destruction of the temple), we can determine that Acts was written before 61 AD.
Luke wrote the Gospel that bears his name before he wrote Acts. The Apostle Paul referenced portions of Luke’s Gospel in letters we can date by Paul’s Roman imprisonment, which means Luke was written prior to 53-57 AD.
Luke uses the Gospel of Mark as one of his references, which means Mark was probably written in 45-50 AD, just 10-15 years after the events of Christ’s life.
Mark was closely associated with the Apostle Peter, who was most assuredly Mark’s “source” in writing his Gospel, and Peter was one of the original twelve apostles called by Jesus.
Matthew and John were both apostles of Jesus, living and working closely with Jesus for over three years.

(2) Is Their Testimony Corroborated?

Archeological finds continually demonstrate the accuracy of the people, titles, places and details the Gospel writers mention.
Outside—or extra-biblical—sources like Josephus (a Jewish historian who wanted to preserve the purity of Judaism), Tacitus (a Roman historian), and Mara Bar-Serapion (a Syrian historian)—all who wrote between 40-70 AD—affirm things like where Jesus lived, the miracles He performed, the manner of His death, His resurrection, and the changed lives of people who believed in Jesus Christ.
In addition, Paul wrote of the “five hundred of the brothers” who were also eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

(3) Has Their Testimony Remain Unchanged Over Time?

The history and accuracy of the scribes had already been demonstrated in the preservation and transmission of the Old Testament over a period of 1400 years.
These same scribal techniques were not only used in the transmission of the New Testament, but in subsequent years the Masoretic scribes became even more meticulous in the techniques they used.
The “chain of custody” of evidence can be absolutely traced from the Gospel authors, to their students, and to the writings of the Church Fathers.
In fact into the third-century AD, the writings of the Church Fathers contain so many direct quotations from the New Testament, that we can almost completely reconstruct the New Testament from their writings.

(4) Is Their Testimony Unbiased?

These eyewitnesses didn’t gain anything financially by their testimony. In fact, many of them lost or gave up all their possessions to tell others about Jesus.
They didn’t gain political power or influence that could save their own lives. All of the original apostles (except John) died a gruesome martyrs’ death.
In short, they had nothing to gain by making up and reporting a false story about Jesus.

All of these points make it reasonable to believe the evidence presented in the Bible about Jesus Christ is true. Check out this video where I elaborate a little more on each of these points—

If you live in the Cedar Springs area and don’t have a home church, I would love for you to visit with us Easter Sunday morning at 10:30am. We’ll be examining the evidence for Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Click here to get more details.

Why The Cross?

March 16, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

Crucifixion seems so extreme (click here to read The Horrors of Crucifixion)! Why would God allow His Son to go through this?

But perhaps we should back up a step or two. Before asking why the Cross maybe there are some other questions we should explore. Questions like…

Did Jesus actually die?
Is the account true that Jesus came back to life?
How can we know for sure?
Is this just too fantastic to believe? Or is the evidence reasonable?

These are questions we must all wrestle with, especially those who call themselves Christians. After all, Christian means a follower of Jesus Christ who believes that Jesus in fact died on a Cross and was raised back to life three days later.

Join me this Sunday was we explore the reliability of the evidence. Then on Easter Sunday morning we will consider the claims that Jesus died and came back to life, as well as the claims that this is all make-believe stuff.

You won’t want to miss this! Click here to find a map to our meeting place. If you cannot join us in person, we will be broadcasting live on Periscope (click here to find the account to follow to be notified when the broadcast begins).