Imagine going to a shop to purchase new tires for your car. After a long wait, finally someone announces, “Your car is ready.” With the bill taken care of, you locate your car in the parking lot, but something just doesn’t seem right; the car is sitting lower than usual. A quick survey of the situation reveals that all four new tires are completely flat. When the technician returns to your car with you, he immediately notices the flat tires, slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand and shouts, “Oh no, I forgot to put air in your new tires!” “I knew I was forgetting something!”
The last step is always crucial whether you are baking a cake, sewing up an incision after surgery, or tying your shoes after getting dressed in the morning. In most cases it would be better to do nothing than to start something and leave out the essential last step.
If our last steps are important, how much more critical must they be in spiritual, eternal matters—say in God’s preparation to save men from their sins. You perhaps have heard that God loves you, but because of your sin, you have been separated from Him. To remedy the situation, God sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for your sins. We call this good news, the Gospel. Jesus came to earth and lived a perfect, sinless life in order to make Himself a sufficient sacrifice for your sin. He gave Himself to be crucified on a Roman cross and was buried. Now if the story ended here, God’s plan would lack the critical last step. A dead Savior is no Savior at all. Jesus must be alive if He is to save those who come to Him by faith, as He promised. There must be a resurrection.
Rest assured the last step in God’s plan to offer forgiveness and eternal life has indeed been completed. Jesus is alive. In three days, He arose from the grave and lives now to welcome you into the family of God—If you will trust Him for forgiveness! “Jesus said…, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live (John 11:25)”