Jesus changes the rules...

The Jewish people were (and still are) governed by rules, don't touch, don't taste, don't look. And everything made you unclean. If you were unclean you couldn't enter the city, the Temple to worship or have contact with others who were clean or you would pass on your uncleanness to them. If you touched something unclean, you BECAME unclean and if you touched anyone else they caught the unclean bug too! So Jewish people were very careful about what they touched, where they walked, what they saw.

That was the order of things, it was like nature. This is the way things work. Storms come and go, the living die, disease, famine, poverty, disabilities, these things were all just a part of the natural order of things. That is, until Jesus came. Jesus worked contrary to nature. He changed the rules. Jesus calmed the storm. Healed the sick. Fed the hungry. Cured disease. Pulled coins from the mouth of fish and restored the disabled. It is clear that the "law" of nature obeyed Jesus, not the other way around, as with you and I.

So when Jesus is heading into town one day and meets a widowed mother who is leading the funeral procession of her only son to the tombs He has compassion. Instead of the customary, "don't worry because it won't you do you any good any how" He defied the law and customs and the fear of being unclean and walked right up to the open stretcher the body of the dead man laid on and touched it. Then He said, "get up." And the dead man did just that.

Jesus isn't afraid of being unclean because He makes all things new. Death isn't scary to Him, death is scared OF Him. Instead of becoming unclean Himself, Jesus made the unclean clean - He was like the spiritual Mr. Clean! There was no mess, no disaster, nothing that scared Jesus. So He walked right up to that death stretcher that represented the victory death had over the boy and He released him. Then Jesus called to the young man to operate in his new reality - life. "Get up!" You are no longer held by the things that kept you down! You are free to experience life like you never have before!

See, sin, uncertainly, fear, jealously, unforgiveness, anger, materialism, these things wrap around us like spiritual chains that hold us down and keep us from experiencing life. But Jesus has the power to release you from those chains and speak directly into your life and He says, GET UP! Live! Go back to your family and experience what Real Life is like!

What is keeping you down? Spiritually dead? It doesn't frighten Jesus. He's in the business of cleaning up messes! You can never be too dead for Jesus to work something incredible in your life. Just listen for His voice. Is He calling you? Respond to Him, he's already released you from the chains that hold you down and back through His death on the cross - get up and begin to operate in your new life!