Alive - by Dave Smith

The core premise of this book and the conviction of billions of
people throughout history is that the answer to the questions of how
we can come fully alive now and for eternity, is found by answering a
third question: Did Jesus Christ come alive again after death and
is he still alive and able to transform our lives both now and
forever?
JESUS IS ALIVE
You may immediately be thinking: why bother with Jesus and how
does what happened to him have any relevance for my life today?
The first answer is because of who Jesus is and what he claimed to
be. Here are a couple of his famous sayings, focusing on his power
to give us life in all its fullness: ‘I have come that they might have life,
and have it to the full’ (John, 10:10). Or as another translation puts it:
‘I came so that they can have real and eternal life, more and better
life than they ever dreamed of’ (John 10:10, The Message). Then,
notice how he promises us the prospect of being fully alive beyond
death: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me
will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me
will never die’ (John 11:25–26).
These are stunning claims, but are only relevant and true if Jesus
himself rose from the dead and is alive today. There’s a story of a
wife and her continually grumpy husband who were on a holiday in
Jerusalem. While they were there, the husband died. The undertaker
told the wife, ‘You can ship him home for £5,000 or you can bury him
here in the Holy Land for only £150.’ The woman thought about it for
a minute, then decided she would have him shipped home. The
mortician asked the woman, ‘Why would you spend £5,000 to ship
your husband home when he could be buried here in Jerusalem for