What kind of impact does the
miracle of Jesus’ resurrection
have on individual lives?

By Lee Strobel & Mark Mittelberg

“The resurrection of Jesus is a cosmic event with a personal impact,” said my friends Kerry and Chris Shook in their book Find Your Miracle. That was true back then, in the lives of Jesus’ immediate friends and followers—as well as those who were skeptical, like James and Paul.

The appearance of the risen Savior had a way of stopping people in their tracks and instantly turning their lives around.

That’s true today as well. I’ve written in several of my books about how the facts supporting the resurrection compelled me to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God who came to save me from my sins. The day I finally owned up to that reality my life was turned around.

The examples are endless.

There’s J. Warner Wallace, the cold-case detective who decided to tackle the oldest case he’d ever encountered—one that was two thousand years old. In the process he subjected the Gospels to months of painstaking analysis through various investigative techniques, including what detectives call “forensic statement analysis,” before finally realizing that he could trust the biblical record—including the reports of Jesus’ rising from the dead. Ultimately Wallace put his trust in him and today, he told me, “my life is consumed by letting others know that faith in Christ isn’t just a subjective emotion, but it’s grounded in the truth of the resurrection.”

I also think of Jewish friends who researched the information for themselves and eventually trusted in Christ. There’s Louis Lapides, who was prodded by a street evangelist, went on a quest to find Jesus in the Jewish scriptures, and through the ancient prophecies realized that Jesus fulfilled the predictions of the Messiah against all odds.

And the late Stan Telchin, a spirited insurance broker who set out to expose the “cult” of Christianity after his daughter went away to college and received Y’shua (Jesus) as her Messiah. His investigation led him to the resurrected Jesus, and he later became a pastor. He tells the story in his autobiographical book, Betrayed! which has impacted the lives of countless other Jewish people.

As with Wallace, the miracle of the resurrection led these Jewish friends to a spiritual transformation that was extraordinary. They exchanged their sin for God’s grace, experienced a profound spiritual rebirth, and were changed in ways that were simply inexplicable in ordinary human terms.

That’s the enduring power of the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection.

Lee Strobel is founding director of The Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. He is the New York Times best-selling author of The Case for Christ and three dozen other books.

Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, speaker and apologist. He is the Executive Director of the Lee Strobel Center at Colorado Christian University.

This is an excerpt from The Miracles Answer Book by Lee Strobel & Mark Mittelberg. Used with permission.