Day 38

A better resurrection

To start

Invest time in silence.

Pray

Father, Son, and Spirit, use Your word to align my heart with Yours.

Read

Read Hebrews 11:35-36.

As you read, consider…

• We have two kinds of resurrections mentioned in this verse. Compare and contrast them.

• “Women received their dead, raised to life again”—plural. How many Bible stories of women receiving their dead back can you recall? List them. What do they have in common?¹

• Meditate on the second half of verse 35: “Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection.” What does that mean?

• Make a list of people in the Bible who were arrested, imprisoned, or publicly punished.

Hebrew 11:35-36 (CSB)

³⁵ Women received their dead, raised to life again. Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. ³⁶ Others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment.

From JL

This is the point in Hebrews 11 where we most feel the contrast in “victorious” living by faith and “surrendered” living by faith.

• Moses—victorious. His faith achieved things like the institution of Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea.

• David, Samson, Jephthah, Gideon Barak—victorious. Enemies fled, battles were won, justice was upheld.

• Women receiving their dead—victorious. Is there a greater victory than life over death?

But then we find stories like these:

• Other people were tortured

• mocked

• scourged

• enslaved

• imprisoned

We’ll see more stories of hardship, suffering, and pain tomorrow. These stories are not victorious yet. They’re stories without an ending, stories surrendered to the Author. By faith, some suffered “so that they might gain a better resurrection.”

Hebrews 11 teaches us that if you live by faith, you may get to experience God’s faithfulness now and you may get to experience God’s faithfulness later. There’s no guarantee which you’ll get. Likely, you’ll get a little of both.

In some parts of your life, God will show up in all His glory and might. In other parts, not so much. Maybe you’ll have a happy family and bad health. Maybe you’ll never want for financial security, but you’ll spend your whole life feeling lonely. Maybe you’ll labor away as an overlooked missionary in a country where faith never really seems to take off, but you have a great marriage. Maybe you’ll be recognized the world over for your acts of faith, but privately you’ll wrestle with whether or not God loves you.

Recently I visited a church in Dublin with a beautiful rose window depicting the breaking wheel on which Saint Catherine was to be tortured. One of the church elders told me the story of how Catherine had been miraculously saved when, upon her touch, the wheel had shattered. After the story, we sat for a second in the silence admiring the wheel and God’s faithfulness. Then he said, “Of course, she’s a martyr, so, well, they just found another way to kill her. But that was later.”

They beheaded her.

I checked up on the facts of Catherine’s story later. It’s categorized as a “legend” as they’re no clear proof such a person exists. I don’t know if she did or didn’t. But I do know one thing—this is how faith works. Sometimes you have faith and God breaks the wheel. Sometimes you have faith and you’re beheaded.

Either way, there’s a better resurrection coming.

Process

• Are you comfortable with the reality that you may not experience “victory” here on earth? Sit with the question for a moment. Ask God to show you the answer.

• Are you judging your faith based on results? Why won’t that work?

• Perhaps you’re uncomfortable with a God who doesn’t keep His promises in this lifetime. Who’s to say He keeps them in the life to come when no one from there is reporting back? Take a moment and offer your complaints to God. He’s eager to listen.

Pray

I will never forget the first time I prayed Wesley’s Covenant Prayer. It was on a postcard, handed out after a sermon one Sunday. I read it, found it terrifying, and slid it into my purse. Days later I’d finally take it out, hands shaking, and pray it through tears.

If you’re struggling to embrace the more “surrendered” side of a life of faith, perhaps this prayer could serve as a kind of portal for you. May you pray it in faith, and may God answer with the gift of increased faith.

Father in heaven,

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

In the Comments

Have you ever witnessed another person’s “surrendered” story and felt inspired to greater faith? Do we need to see results to admire another person’s faith?

What would happen if we applied that same logic to our own stories?

Godspeed,

JL

1. 1 Kings 17:17–24, 2 Kings 4:18–37, Luke 7:11–17, John 11