It’s 11:33 pm on the night before Easter and I am looking back on some of the conversations I’ve had and thinking about what I should have said but didn’t and what I said when I should have kept my mouth shut. It seems like I can never please myself in that regard. I sense in these times that something in me just isn’t right. That I’m broken and crooked.

The answer to my brokenness and crookedness, or what the apostle Paul would call my flesh, my sin nature that dwells in me, is three little words: He is risen.

If Jesus died for my sins and stayed dead, I am still guilty. I am still condemned. I will still have to pay for all my sins some day. Even if Jesus was the best moral example and a great teacher, it doesn’t help me in the least if the stone in front of His tomb stayed put and never moved. I am still lost and without hope.

But He is risen! That means that everything He said is true. That means that He is everything He said He was (and still is!). That means that nothing will ever be the same again.

It means that you and I have hope. It means that goodbyes are not forever and failure is not final and death does not have the last word. It means that one day all that is wrong with you and me and the world will be put right and all the lies will come untrue.

He is risen! Those three words are why we celebrate Easter. Those three words trump whatever the enemy is whispering in my head right now. Because of those three words, the devil is a defeated foe and He has no more authority or right to speak into my (or your) life anymore. He may remind me of my past or my shortcomings, but all I have to do in response is remind him of his future.

He is risen! We have hope. Anything is possible. Love wins in the end. You are not hopeless and you are definitely not too far gone or past redeeming. If Jesus could defeat death on its own terms, what makes you think He can’t defeat anything you’re facing right now? He can and He will.

Celebrate that as His child, that very same power that brought Jesus out of the tomb on Easter Sunday is in you. The love that was more powerful than hate and the grave and hell was His love for you. Yes, He is risen. He is risen indeed!