Season for the Reason: Lifting Rocks and Rolling Stones

             There is an age-old paradox that is asked at times regarding the existence of an omnipotent God. "If an omnipotent being has the power to create a stone He cannot lift, how can He be omnipotent?" Of course, the inherent problem with the wording in this question is that it ignores the fact that God's thoughts and ways are above our own and in fact, are not our own. (Isaiah 55:8-9) God is capable of doing anything He wants- including, if He so desired, creating a stone that He could not lift and still be omnipotent. How could this be done? Since the definition of omnipotence means being all-powerful, God would have to lower Himself and limit Himself in order to perform this feat. Just because we can't understand something doesn't mean it can't be done. In the case of creating and lifting a stone heavier than an omnipotent being can lift, the Omnipotent God did this when He came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Though Jesus was fully God, He was also fully human. "...though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:6-11)
     Though Jesus often showed displays of His power as God (see Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for accounts of the numerous miracles He did of healing the sick, miraculously changing water into wine, feeding 5000+ with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, walking on water, raising Lazarus and others from the dead, etc.), He also limited Himself and did not use all His power. Jesus tells Peter to put away his sword in the garden of Gethsemane when He was arrested and reminds him of His power. "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" (Matthew 26:53-54)
        Because of the heart of stone in our flesh that we all have that is bent towards sin, God needed to do a heart transplant for all of us to give us a heart of flesh instead. (Ezekiel 36:26) He accomplished that by having His own heart broken for us (figuratively and literally) when Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for all our sins. He then was buried in a tomb with a huge stone to guard the entrance. Mary Magdalene and other women wondered to each other who would roll away the stone for them, in order for them to anoint Jesus' body with spices. (see Mark 16:1-7) But, of course, they didn't have to worry about that because God used His power to roll the stone back via one of His angels, as Matthew 28:1-10 talks about.
          Beyond the physical, the greatest stone God lifts is a spiritual one. As 2 Corinthians 3:3 talks about, people's lives changed by Christ are the greatest testimony to His power, as written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on tables of human hearts. The stone tablets of The Ten Commandments Moses received brought us the ministry of death because the Law condemns us, as we have all broken it many times over- and our hearts are already tainted by the sin nature handed down from Adam and Eve from the start. We have all been condemned to Hell as a result, "for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23) However, the ministry of the Spirit has even more glory than the Law's ministry of condemnation. Moses had a glow on his face because of The Lord's glory shining through that Old Testament covenant of the Law that he had to put a veil on. That veil still lies on people's hearts today because they are hardened. When one turns to The Lord, it is removed. With unveiled face, we behold the glory of Christ and begin the process of being transformed into His image (more so than our physical creation in His image) from one degree of glory to another. (see all of Exodus 34 and 2 Corinthians 3.)
            This spiritual stone is one that God moves when we ask Him to do so- He doesn't force it upon us. "Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12) Somewhat ironically, when that spiritual stone is removed- after we make the choice to call on the Name of The Lord to save us (Romans 10:9, Acts 2:21, Joel 2:32)- we then become a living stone that God uses to build up His church. (2 Peter 2:4-10) Of course, Jesus is the Stone the builders rejected Who became the cornerstone. Whoever believes in this cornerstone laid in Zion will not be put to shame. (see Isaiah 40:6-8, Isaiah 28:16, Isaiah 8:14 and Psalms 118:22) And as 1 Corinthians 3:11 tells us, this Cornerstone Jesus is the foundation laid that God builds His church upon. Those of whose who are living stones get built and molded together upon that Foundation- the church's one foundation, in fact, as the hymn says. 　
         And as Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 to another living stone (Simon Bar-Jonah, nicknamed Peter by Jesus- which means rock)- He's going to build His church upon the rock of Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And as Revelation 21 tells us, The Lord has 12 precious stones that He uses to adorn the wall of New Jerusalem in Heaven. The only way to get to see those stones in a kingdom that can never be shaken is to put faith in the Cornerstone Jesus and build your life upon His foundation. That requires having a stone of blindness and doubt moved from our hearts, which we can't do on our own, but God can do for us if we'll let Him. All we need do is ask.