Encouraging words

“The resurrection . . . sharply defines what it must mean to have faith in Christ. Because Christ has been raised from the dead, we are not putting our faith in merely a historical event but in a living, death conquering, and reigning Savior. Our faith is based on something in the past, but it is placed in One who is very much alive today. Notice how the apostle Paul speaks of faith in terms of a living Christ: ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). Paul is living by faith in the living Christ. And he prays that this would be our normative Christian experience: ‘that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’ (Ephesians 3:16-17).”
- John Ensor, The Great Work of the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 102.

“He laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and look! I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and Hades’” (Revelation 1:17-18).
Literally, Jesus says, ‘Stop being afraid..’ Why? Because Jesus Christ has walked into the gaping jaws of the greatest enemy there is. On the cross he let all the powers that threaten to undo us have their unrestrained way with him. He let death take him captive. And then he burst out of the prison and carried away the prison keys!”
- Darrell W. Johnson, Discipleship on the Edge (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2004), 47-48.

“Though he be the great God, yet he has, as it were, brought himself down to be upon a level with you, so as to become man as you are that he might not only be your Lord, but your brother, and that he might be the more fit to be a companion for such a worm of the dust.
This is one end of Christ’s taking upon him man’s nature, that his people might be under advantages for a more familiar converse with him than the infinite distance of the divine nature would allow of.”
- Jonathan Edwards, “The Excellency of Christ”

All gleaned from "Of First Importance".