"We're not all going to die!"
April 24
But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort. 1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Studying this passage in The Message translation the other day I got so fired up when I read the phrase...
"We're not all going to die!" (No, this is not an entry on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic.)
"A single victorious stroke of Life....the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ" is a quote that brings out a hallelujah as well.
The meat of the matter for me though was the challenge...what am I called to do with the truth which has changed my life? With the gift of hope of seeing Jesus and the peace that a life everlasting brings. The passage says, so this: "Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort."
May our heads not hit a pillow at night without having turned an ear to Jesus and left a bread crumb on this earth, which might lead another to Christ.
"A single victorious stroke of Life....the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ" is a quote that brings out a hallelujah as well.
The meat of the matter for me though was the challenge...what am I called to do with the truth which has changed my life? With the gift of hope of seeing Jesus and the peace that a life everlasting brings. The passage says, so this: "Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort."
May our heads not hit a pillow at night without having turned an ear to Jesus and left a bread crumb on this earth, which might lead another to Christ.
