Easter is a wonderful time to focus on the most important events in history: Christ’s death and resurrection. However, it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on these things only at Easter. In reality, Christ’s death and resurrection affect us every day, and in his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul teases out some of these implications of the resurrection.

Resurrection Power in You

In Ephesians 1:15-19, Paul prays for the Spirit of God to enable the Ephesian believers to know three things: “the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.” Of these three, Paul elaborates on the last one.

What kind of power has God exercised toward us who believe? “He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens” (Ephesians 1:20). Paul wants believers to know and experience that the same power God used to raise Jesus from the dead is the same power he uses to work in us. How so?

Made Alive

The next time Christ’s resurrection is mentioned is in Ephesians 2:1-7. Here, Paul says that even though we were dead in our sins (1, 5), God “made us alive with Christ… and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens” (5-6). This was an incredible display of God’s lavish mercy, love, and grace (4-5).

As believers in Christ, we are united to Christ. Since we are united to him, we are raised in his resurrection. We experience his new life in ourselves. And we are even exalted to the heavenly realms in Christ! Incredible.

What does this mean for you each day? For one, it means you are no longer dead in sin. You have new life in Christ, and with that new life you are able to glorify and please God. You’re also no longer under Satan’s power or part of his dark kingdom (Ephesians 2:2-3). Now that God has made you alive, you have a new Spirit in you, enabling you to live obediently instead of disobediently, righteously instead of unrighteously. Because of your union with Christ, you are under God’s grace instead of God’s wrath. If you are united to Christ by faith, these things are true of you every day, not just Resurrection Sunday.

Power

In Paul’s prayer, he mentioned the power of God at work in Christ’s resurrection and in us. He uses three different terms to talk about God’s immeasurably mighty power. As we trace Paul’s other uses of these “power” words throughout Ephesians, we see he connects them with the ability to comprehend God’s love and to fight spiritual warfare.

Comprehend God’s Love

Ephesians 3:14-21 is another Pauline prayer. In a nutshell, he prays for the Spirit to strengthen believers spiritually so they can comprehend God’s love and thus have an intimate relationship with Christ and be filled with God’s fullness. The words for “power” and “strength” in this passage are either the same as in 1:15-23 or are related words. By the Spirit, then, Christ’s resurrection gives us spiritual power to comprehend God’s incomprehensible love.

And what an incredible love this is! We need God’s spiritual power to comprehend it (Ephesians 3:16-18). It is our spiritual foundation (Ephesians 3:17). It surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). It fills us with the fullness of God, conforming us to Christ’s image (Ephesians 3:19; 4:13). So if you want to know Christ better and experience more of His love, pray for the Spirit to work in you with God’s resurrection power. That will lead to a richer experience of God and His love.

Fight Spiritual Warfare

The other place power is mentioned is Ephesians 6:10-18. Here, Paul tells us to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might,” again using all three words for “power” (Ephesians 6:10). Our strength for spiritual warfare comes from Christ’s resurrection power in us.

We also must “put on the whole armor of God” so we can fight against our spiritual enemies (Ephesians 6:11-12). These “rulers,” “authorities,” “cosmic powers,” and “spiritual forces of evil” are the same ones Christ triumphed over when He rose from the dead and was exalted to the Father’s right hand (Ephesians 1:21). Again, our victory in spiritual warfare comes from Christ’s resurrection.

Every day, you face spiritual warfare of some sort. Whether it’s temptation to sin, opposition to your service to God, or some sort of persecution, you must stand in God’s strength and God’s armor. You must remember that Christ has defeated these spiritual forces and rely on his resurrection power for victory.

Victory over Sin

Finally, Paul connects Christ’s resurrection power in us to victory over sin. In 5:1-14, Paul exhorts the Ephesians to walk in love (1-2) and avoid sexual sin (3-4). Why? Because those who live sexually immoral lives will experience God’s wrath instead of God’s kingdom (5-6) and because believers are now light instead of darkness (7-10). Broadly, this means we should not participate in any sin, but should expose them as works of darkness (11-14).

Because light exposes sin as darkness, Paul says that those who are dead in sin should “awake… and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (14). Rising from the dead is clearly a reference to the resurrection. However, we can’t raise ourselves from the dead. This is another instance of Christ’s resurrection power at work in us.

When we rise to new life in Christ, his light exposes the sin in us so we can be rid of it. His light exposes the sin around us so we can avoid it. His light exposes sin in others so we can help them overcome it. Christ’s resurrection brings light, and light makes the darkness of sin flee.

Those are just a few ways the resurrection affects us every day. The immeasurable power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in all believers today, giving us life, empowering us to comprehend God’s love and fight our spiritual warfare, and exposing sin with Christ’s light. By God’s power, may we remember the resurrection every day and live in God’s love and light for the praise of his glorious grace.