August 20: THE KISS OF LIFE

Now after three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Revelation 11:11

There was a literal three-and-a-half-year period (called days in prophetic writing) when it appeared that the Bible and its spokespersons had been silenced (see devo of two days ago). Indeed, there was open celebration of this death that included much merry-making and gift-giving (v.10). But after that period of time, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet. Our amazing God, the Source and Giver of all life, has only to speak life into reality. These two phrases hearken back to the foundational doctrine of creation and re-creation in the Old Testament:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

In vision: So I [Ezekiel] prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them [the dry bones], and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Ezekiel 37:10

He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. Psalm 33:9

After Jesus, the living Word, had died upon the cross, was entombed, and then resurrected, an angel of the Lord . . . came and rolled back the stone from the tomb that had been sealed with a Roman seal and guarded by Roman guards. This one angel, whose countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow, was reacted to thusly: the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men (see Matthew 28:2-4), a powerful parallel to the final phrase of our verse today: great fear fell on those who saw them.

After the literary Word lay in ashes on the streets of Paris, across France, and in other surrounding areas, it was brought back to life again by the power of God. For all of those who were rejoicing, the party came to its prophesied end. At the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, great missionary movements and Bible societies sprang into existence across Europe and in America and, aided by the printing press, this literary Word began to spread to the east and west like never before. No amount of gloating over piles of ashes could keep the Word of God from being multiplied and shared.

Dear reader, has the breath of life from God entered you for a spiritual birth? All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on [His dear Son] the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). This opportunity for rebirth, or resuscitation, is quite literally the kiss of life! Oh, how He loves you and me!

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Ephesians 2:1-2