I recently gave a presentation titled, “Does the Resurrection Really matter?” I proceeded to ask the audience, “What does the resurrection mean to you personally and how has it impacted your life?” I realize that there are many people that may not have given that question the consideration it deserves.

One of the ways it should impact your life relates to the power of the resurrection. In Philippians 3:10, Paul speaks of his great desire to know Christ and to experience the power of His resurrection.

So much of the Christian life is about God’s power working in us. Paul is saying it is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. We live in a broken world where there is so much dysfunction in people’s lives. Can our lives be truly transformed so that we become the people we ought to be?

A person who found himself in this situation was theologian and philosopher, Augustine (354-430 A.D.). He lived a very hedonistic, self-indulgent lifestyle which only lead to emptiness and despair. Over time he realized how weak and feeble he was and therefore concluded he needed something outside himself to come and transform his life. He finally concluded the power outside of himself that he so desperately needed was Christ.

When you read the parables of Jesus, he often compares the gospel to a tiny seed. I don’t think we realize the paradoxical strength of a seed. Take a tiny acorn. It seems so small and powerless, yet there is everything in that acorn to grow into a large oak tree. And of course, that oak tree over the years will produce thousands of acorns.

I love the story that G. Campbell Morgan, a British minister, shares about a trip he made to Italy. One day he wandered into an old cemetery. There was a grave that was centuries old.  It was apparently the grave of some prominent, wealthy man. On that grave was an enormous, thick slab of marble. Somehow, an acorn had years before fallen into the grave, and over the centuries grown out under the side of the marble. It had become a huge tree and cracked the slab of marble and rolled it off into two pieces. This was so amazing to people – that a little acorn could do this over time. Yet, when a little acorn is given a chance to release its power it can do something a team of horses could not do.

Morgan then made this observation. “If an acorn which has the power of just biological and botanical life in it, as slow as it is, if it can split a marble slab of that magnitude, what do you think the acorn of God’s resurrection power can do in you?”

We all should answer the question, what kind of slabs do we have in our lives. It could be fear, anger, a sense of hopelessness and despair, a broken relationship, or any weakness or struggle that you may be grappling with. I do not care how broken or dysfunctional you are on the inside. If you bring the power of Christ into your life, He has the power to crack and roll that stone out of your life. This is the hope Christ offers to a broken world. It is the same hope he offers to you and me.

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.