Revived

Written by Pastor Noah Wieler

If you have ever taken a basic First Aid course, you know the importance of CPR.  CPR is used when someone’s heart has stopped beating.  In fact, the person can even be legally declared dead.  The heart can’t beat on its own, the person cannot “will it” or work their heart to beat. It can only beat with the help of someone else, the person giving CPR. 

But what happens after someone has performed CPR?

The Bible tells us we are like the person in need of CPR. We are legally dead “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins”.(Ephesians 2:1). We cannot will or work our heart to beat and we can’t will or work our way to Christ. But just like someone giving us CPR, Christ has come to make us alive and keep us alive. “Even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead” (Ephesians 2:5). “For it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:8). 

However, Christ didn’t just make us alive by giving CPR, instead, He has taken us to the hospital and given us full heart surgery. Christ gives us a whole new heart. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh“ (Ezekiel 36:26). 

Christ completely heals us by giving us a new heart, but if you have ever had major surgery you know you most likely have to do physiotherapy. Physiotherapy is a place that you go to once maybe twice a week, where you come alongside other broken people with unique injuries and under the leadership and direction of someone with more knowledge and experience, they help and guide you through the healing process. Physio is similar to the church; it is a group of injured people gathered together to grow and heal. Hebrews 10:25 says we should “not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

In standard physiotherapy, you only see and work with your physician once or twice weekly. In our spiritual walk, we are given the Holy Spirit, who desires to be our guide and helper wherever we go. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).

God doesn't just heal our outward brokenness but gives us a new heart and new desires. Christ, (The Great Physician)'s prescription is not to do better or work harder but to have complete heart surgery, to be completely healed, but then to continue the healing process by joining other believers and walking in obedience to the Holy Spirit.