Escape rooms are the latest craze. The Internet’s favorite and most trusted source (LOL), Wikipedia, leads its description with this statement, “An escape room is a physical adventure game in which players solve a series of puzzles using clues, hints and strategies to complete the objectives at hand.” The whole object is to defy the captivity of the room to find freedom before a set time runs out. Escape rooms are truly about the experience. Some people crumble under the pressure of time and are unable to conquer the room, even when the way out is literally staring them in the face. While others remain calm, carefully analyze the information before them, apply what they learn, and are victorious.
Now, I have not participated in an escape room just yet, but I can testify that I have allowed my circumstances to defeat me in the moment. I have also had experiences when a task or opposition before me seems so incredibly daunting, but when I go with what I know and allow my decisions to be based on the wisdom that grows from what I learn along the way, I find the solution I needed as a result. In those times, I leave feeling ecstatic and free because the burden is gone.
There are so many awesome ways to describe Jesus. His name alone is power! Jesus is the one and only way to freedom, to life from the escape room (this world) that we are navigating through. Throughout God’s Word, he reveals Jesus as the one and only way to move from death to life. Jesus is the Resurrection for all humanity for all time, but so often we live as those trapped in this world. If we have trusted in Christ and have a relationship with him, we do not live under the bondage of sin but in the newness and freedom of life in Jesus. It might be that there is knowledge of who Jesus is and what he has done without personally accepting him as Savior, but saying yes to Jesus is where life truly begins.
So live for today! Live walking in the power of his resurrection! Over the past couple of months, I have grown to absolutely love the song What A Beautiful Name. There is such truth found in its words, but if I had to sing just one part to remind me who my Jesus is, I would lean in on this:
Death could not hold you, the veil tore before you
You silenced the boast of sin and grave
The heavens are roaring, the praise of your glory
For you are raised to life again
You have no rival, you have no equal
Now and forever, God you reign
Yours is the kingdom, yours is the glory
Yours is the name above all names
I believe with all my heart and soul that it is impossible not to be changed by Christ after reading his Word and even brushing the surface of his redeeming love for us. Live knowing that every day is Easter when we live in Christ.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 8:37-39 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
— John 14:6 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
— John 11:25-26 (ESV)
I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
— Philippians 3:10-11 (The Message)
“For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (NIV)
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
— Romans 8:10 (ESV)