God Is Not Dead!

"For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires." Hebrews 4:12(NLT)

by Alexandra Copeland
Driving home, painted on the back windshield of the car in front of me was “GOD is not dead!!!” The first words out of my mouth were, “AMEN!” And then I thought, “Of course God isn’t dead. Does anyone really think that?!!!” As a Christian, it is absolutely absurd to even fathom such a notion for one second. Heavenly Father is more real to us than the people we see every day, and it is difficult to believe that there are actually folks out there that believe God is dead. An even more unbelievable truth is the fact that there are plenty of us Christians that are not as overjoyed and excited about Christ as the person that was driving this vehicle. Most of us won’t cop to it, but we in fact behave sometimes as if we’ve forgotten that not only is Jesus Christ alive, he is aware of our every move.

In Ephesians 3:14-16(NKJV), the Apostle Paul prayed, “14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,"  So often we look for external signs and wonders, when the real action is going on inside of us. God’s desire is that we are strengthened through His Spirit on the inside, in the inner man.

God is talking about our spirit-man in Ephesians 3:16. After we received the spirit of Christ, and made Jesus Christ the Lord and head of our lives, we received a newly created spirit. We can’t see our spirits, but the indwelling Holy Spirit will give us witness that not only do we have a new spirit, but he has made our spirits his home. This is such a ginormous, huge deal that mere words are too inadequate to do it justice. We are alive in Christ! To know this should make all the difference in your life.

Some people do not know this on an intimate level. They don’t have a concept of what it is to walk by the spirit and to live in Christ every moment of the day. I knew a faithful Christian mother whose son had passed on a few years after she had given her life to Christ. In her senior years she had become very dutiful to the Lord, and He changed her life completely; but in her younger years she was a bit of a rebel. As an adult, her son knew of her conversion, but he had no interest in a relationship with God and died without having made Jesus Christ the head of his life. Oh how his mother labored in prayer for the lost soul of her only child. She knew what he had missed, and prayed desperately that the Lord would somehow bring her son into the fold, even in death.

Something happened to this woman. She became alive in a way that she couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams. Something on the inside of her was changed, and she knew it resolutely; so much so that she wanted her dead son to taste from the well of eternity that she now calls home. She may have feared hell for him, but years before, when they were both living very different lives, the possibility of hell had not crossed her mind. She could have cared less about an eternal future.

Going a little further in his prayer, under the unction of the Holy Ghost, Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:17-19 (NKJV), “17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Christ lives in us when we open the door and invite him in. Some people will never do this. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love them. It means that they do not love God. When we know of people like this, we have a responsibility to pray for them, but we cannot allow their refusal to know our Heavenly Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to deter our enthusiasm one bit.

It may be upsetting to hear, but everyone is not going to be in the family named after Jesus Christ, as it says in Ephesians 3:15. Some people living today will not receive the gift of eternal life, and will not make Jesus Christ the Lord of their lives. They will not recognize that their lives have been purchased back from the depths of hell with an exceedingly high price. They don’t hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God, and have no desire to know that truth. This is their choice, and they are free to make it, but as saints of God this isn’t who we are. There should be a marked difference between those who refuse the love of God, and those of us who desire to bask in it every moment of each day. We are children of the light, and we must pray to continue to comprehend the love of Christ more deeply, and to be filled with ALL the fullness of God. This kind of spiritual treasure is available for us to receive in Christ, and it is truly a remarkable thing; even the fact that we can pray for it is a miracle within itself.  

In Ephesians 3:20,21 (NKJV), Paul ended his prayer for the saints beautifully by saying, “20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” God has done and will do the exceedingly abundantly in our lives. He goes beyond anything we could ever ask or think. Those of us who are in His family know this for ourselves, and we pray that everyone will know the love of Christ in the very same way. It will set your soul on fire, and when you’re truly excited about the light switch being turned on in the sanctum of your inner being, you can’t keep it to yourself. You might have at one time believed that God was dead, or that He doesn’t exist. Imagine what a life of hopelessness that is. But then one glorious day, you discover that God lives, and Jesus Christ rose from the dead after having given his life as a payment for our sins. That’s something to shout from the roof tops, or at the very least put on the back windshield. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.