Mark Batterson - One Little Yes Can Change Your Life: Excerpts from the Grave Robber

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

1. The Grave Robber

2. Even Now

3. Risk Your Reputation

4. One Little Yes

God Is Calling You Out

Notes

About the Author

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When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? he asked.

Come and see, Lord, they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, See how he loved him!

But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Take away the stone, he said.

But, Lord, said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.

Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, Take off the grave clothes and let him go.

John 11:3244

Mark Batterson is the New York Times bestselling author of The Circle Maker . The lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC, Mark has a doctor of ministry degree from Regent University and lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Lora, and their three children.

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O ne of my earliest movie memories is the 1978 version of Superman starring Christopher Reeve. Supermans heartthrob, Lois Lane, is driving through the Nevada desert when a crevice opened by an earthquake swallows her car. Superman cant get there in time to save Lois because hes busy building a natural dam out of boulders to stop a flood caused by a breach in the Hoover Dam. When he discovers that Lois is dead, Superman gets super angry. He flies around the earth at supersonic speeds, reversing its rotation, theoretically turning back time.

Now, I know the science behind that scene is suspect. After all, the earth rotates around its axis at one thousand miles per hour. So if Superman had reversed its rotation, he may have saved Lois Lane, but everyone else on the planet would have died of whiplash! But its still a cool concept, isnt it? Dont you wish you could turn back time right after saying or doing something you wish you hadnt? The problem, of course, is that the arrow of time points in one direction.

Whats done is done. Some things in life are irreversible.

You cannot unbake cookies, uncut hair, undelete documents, or unrun red lights. These are a few of the lessons Ive learned the hard way. Some of those lessons were easily laughed off after a little embarrassmentlike the bald strip on the back of my head after the barber said, Oops. I actually used Loras mascara for a few weeks until the bald spot grew back out. Others cost me a little cash, like a $110 ticket for running a red light. Then there are those irreversible moments that leave a hole in your heart foreverlike standing at the foot of my father-in-laws casket after a heart attack ended his earthly life at fifty-five years of age.