Phil Rowlands

Hello, my friends!

In the early hours of this morning, I could hear the song being sung in my heart and mind, “Death Was Arrested” by North Point Worship. For about 15 years now, as I sleep, often there are worship songs going through my mind, but on occasion, some seem to be more prominent, like they aren't just the Lord singing over me, but they are the announcing of something, or the feeling of God more intently leaning into my life through song. It's really hard to explain and articulate, but I just love this part of my relationship with God, especially when for many years I had night terrors. I'd hear these songs in my mind as I slept but also experience night terrors. But since my night terrors abated some 18 months ago now, I don't get as many songs as I sleep, but plenty of very vivid dreams.

Anyway, this song that was going through my mind in the early hours of this morning, “Death Was Arrested,” well, the lyrics that stood out as I slept were “Oh, Your grace so free, washes over me,” but the rest of the lyrics are just wonderful, and here are some of them:

“Alone in my sorrow and dead in my sin,

Lost without hope with no place to begin.

Your love made a way to let mercy come in,

When death was arrested and my life began.

Ash was redeemed, only beauty remains,

My orphan heart was given a name.

My mourning grew quiet, my feet rose to dance,

When death was arrested and my life began.

Released from my chains, I'm a prisoner no more,

My shame was a ransom He faithfully bore.

He cancelled my debt and He called me His friend,

When death was arrested and my life began.

Oh, Your grace so free,

Washes over me.

You have made me new,

Now life begins with You.

It's your endless love

Pouring down on us.

You have made us new,

Now life begins with You.

Our Savior displayed on a criminal's cross,

Darkness rejoiced as though heaven had lost.

But then Jesus arose with our freedom in hand,

That's when death was arrested and my life began.”

How about those lyrics? They are just such a story of the reality of how we come to Christ. I often quip that the Lord arrested me from my old life and released me into a new one, and I often said that well before I understood exactly what it meant.

We are just so free in Christ, so absolutely and totally free. We entered in through the narrow gate, which is Christ Jesus, and now we are free in the new kingdom, that of our Father in heaven. A kingdom that is eternal, a kingdom where all our needs are met, a kingdom where we can be rested and are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus, according to His glorious riches, amen.

So many times, I feel I have come to the precipice of something new, and there begins a wobble and some fear, and some uncertainty, and somehow Jesus arrests me once again, and leads me, leads my clumsiness into a whole new season of life, and I can honestly look back and see that it was Him all the way. I didn't do anything really; He did it all, and if anything, the bits I tried to do myself came to nothing and caused me a bit of heartache, and the bits He did, well, the whole thing really, it turns out that the fruit was all Him, and there is absolutely no way I could have organised things and orchestrated things as well as He did.

Jesus is just so good at gently leading and giving a gentle nudge in the right direction when needed. He is great at opening doors and even better at closing doors, and He is always patiently walking with us to the next intersection, preparing us for the moment we need to choose one way or the other.

We are His workmanship, and we are just so guided by Him daily. The things that hinder this guidance are really only the distractions of self and the distractions of the world, and I think that is why He arrests us, well initially, as we come into the kingdom of heaven, but also intermittently as we ebb and flow along in life, sometimes bouncing off the sides of this spiritual funnel, where there really is only one way to go and even though we bounce from side to side sometimes, eventually we will make it to that narrow bit at the end and pop out into the next bit of life the Lord has for us.

Our Jesus never leaves us or forsakes us, not for a minute. He is always championing us along and encouraging us to do His will and His work that was prepared before the foundations of the world for us to walk in and to complete. Often Christians feel so distant from God; they feel like He is up in the sky and has very little to do with their earthly journey except for the bit at the end when they think He is going to judge to see if they are truly worthy of salvation, not realising that their salvation was achieved by Christ at the cross, and that they have been secure in Him all the days of their lives, but unfortunately didn't have a revelation of that wonderful truth.

I love the fact that Jesus came for me. He took me from a life of death and jettisoned me into a life of love, a life of peace, and a life that is born of Him in every way. We can be challenged by the things in this life, but they will never topple us; they will never defeat us because death itself in our lives, spiritual death essentially, has been totally wiped from our existence. We are saved by His beautiful grace, His beautiful love.

Be blessed today, my friends. Thank God, He arrested us, He arrested death and destroyed it on the cross on our behalf. Let the love of Christ just run all over you today. Let Him, who knew no sin, who became sin on our behalf, just pour out His grace upon you today, as you open up your hearts to just how wonderful and beautiful He actually is. Let the Son of our Father in Heaven shine on you today, ever so brightly, ever so wonderfully, and never forget that you are His for an eternity, and you cannot mess that up even if you spent the rest of your life trying to. You are His forever.

Phil