VIDEO The Resurrection Body – Mystery of Resurrection

We shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  1 Corinthians 15:51-52

In a 1923 book, The Resurrection Body, Wilbert W. White compared the resuscitation of Lazarus in John 11 with the resurrection of Jesus. With Lazarus, the stone had to be rolled away to let Lazarus out. With Christ, the stone was rolled away to let people in to see the empty tomb. When Lazarus rose, he struggled to walk in his shroud. Jesus rose out of His shroud. “He sprang in His new, powerful, spiritual body out of the wrappings, thus evidencing Him to be the Son of God,” wrote White. Lazarus died again, but Jesus rose immune from death.

Our resurrection bodies will be like that of Christ, not of Lazarus.

“The resurrection body is not the body reanimated,” wrote White. “It is not a mere return to life in the same corruptible, weak, fleshly, natural body of the grave…. It will be a body perfectly adapted to the new order of nature in which it is to live. It will be an incorruptible body.”[1]

Be encouraged today. We have a great future!

How can we be sure that we shall one day have new bodies like the glorified body of our Savior? We can be sure because the Spirit lives within us.  Warren W. Wiersbe

---

The Mystery of Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:50-58)

Look Up!

There will be no night there. Revelation 21:25

 

When filmmaker Wylie Overstreet showed strangers a live picture of the moon as seen through his powerful telescope, they were stunned at the up-close view, reacting with whispers and awe. To see such a glorious sight, Overstreet explained, “fills us with a sense of wonder that there’s something much bigger than ourselves.”

The psalmist David also marveled at God’s heavenly light. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3–4).

David’s humbling question puts our awe in perspective when we learn that, after God creates His new heaven and earth, we’ll no longer need the moon or the sun. Instead, said John the apostle, God’s shimmering glory will provide all necessary light. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. . . . There will be no night there” (Revelation 21:23–25).

What an amazing thought! Yet we can experience His heavenly light now—simply by seeking Christ, the Light of the world. In Overstreet’s view, “We should look up more often.” As we do, may we see God.

By:  Patricia Raybon

Reflect & Pray

What does God’s heavenly light teach you about Him? When you praise the glory of God, what do you experience?

Our wondrous God, I’m awed by Your holy glory, and I praise You for Your marvelous Light.

The Struggle With Doubt

James 1:5-8

To trust that biblical promises are true requires faith. According to Hebrews 11:1, faith is “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (NIV). At salvation, we believed through faith that we were saved by God through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus.

Since then, many of us have struggled to believe consistently that God’s promises are true—or that they apply to us. Our faith has been mixed with doubt. Sometimes we feel unsure of God’s love or forgiveness. At other times, especially when life gets hard, we question whether we’ve truly been given all that we need. If prayers are not answered as we expect, we wonder whether the Lord really cares about us. In such instances, our feelings and circumstances cloud what we truly believe.

The good news is that Scripture can help us gain confidence in times of uncertainty. It can be trusted because the author—God Himself—is trustworthy. As we study its pages, the Holy Spirit works through our doubt, and the promises of God begin to sink in.

Remember, Jesus invites us to bring our burden of doubt to Him. We can trust that He will give us rest from it (Matt. 11:28).

Resurrection is in the Old Testament

“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” (Isaiah 26:19)

Some have argued that the doctrine of a bodily resurrection was unknown to the Israelites of the Old Testament. In fact, this denial was a cardinal doctrine of the sect of the Sadducees at the time of Christ (Matthew 22:23).

Our text, however, makes it clear that this promise has always been known to the people of God. Long before Isaiah’s time, Job had said: “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And…in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26). After the time of Isaiah, the promise was still known. “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Such promises were not referring to some vague “immortality of the soul,” as taught in pagan religions, but to resurrection of the body!

First, however, the Creator must become man, die for the sins of the world, and defeat death by His own bodily resurrection. In our text, in fact, Christ is saying that Old Testament believers would be raised “together with my dead body.” This was literally fulfilled when “the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many” (Matthew 27:52-53). Then, when Jesus first ascended to heaven (John 20:17), He led the souls of those who had been in “captivity” in the grave with Him into heaven (Ephesians 4:8). All who have trusted Christ in the Christian era will likewise be raised from the dead when He comes again. He has defeated death and has promised, “because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). HMM

Remember Philip The Calculator

Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

—John 6:7

 

Here in the New Testament was Philip the Calculator—Philip the Mathematician, Philip the Clerk. There was need for a miracle, and Philip set out to calculate the odds. Probably every Christian group has at least one person with a calculator. I have sat on boards for many years, and rarely is there a board without a Philip the Calculator among its members. When you suggest something, out comes the calculator to prove that it cannot be done….

As I say, I have been sitting on these boards for many years, and there are always two kinds of board members: those who can see the miracle and those who can only see their calculators and their strings of calculations….

The people with the calculators have seen the problem, but they have not seen God. They have figured things out, but they have not figured God in.

Philip the Calculator. He can be a dangerous man in the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every suggestion made in the direction of progress gets a negative vote from this man.   FBR137-139

Lord, deliver us from the control of the calculator. Increase our faith. Amen.

 

Taken Up with Christ

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery…which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

—Colossians 1:27

 

If we would please the indwelling Spirit we must be all taken up with Christ. The Spirit’s present work is to honor Him, and everything He does has this for its ultimate purpose. And we must make our thoughts a clean sanctuary for His holy habitation.

He dwells in our thoughts, and soiled thoughts are as repugnant to Him as soiled linen to a king. Above all we must have a cheerful faith that will keep on believing however radical the fluctuation in our emotional states may be.

The Spirit indwelt life is not a special deluxe edition of Christianity to be enjoyed by a certain rare and privileged few who happen to be made of finer and more sensitive stuff than the rest. Rather, it is the normal state for every redeemed man and woman the world over. POM136-137

Is the glory of God the great end of your being?…Is your love to God supreme? Does it rise superior to the attachments of flesh and sense? What, whom do you love more than the everlasting God?…Supreme love to God is decisive evidence of the renewed heart. DTC078-079

 

The Eleventh Commandment

John 13:34, 35

Have we the right to assert that in the final hours of His earthly ministry Jesus added to the commandments of God? Yes, certainly, if we believe His statement that He was giving a new commandment. Obviously that must increase the number.

But was it really new? What was so novel about telling people to love one another? All great religions in the history of the world say something of the sort. The Old Testament certainly did, as Jesus was well aware. For, when asked to identify the greatest commandment He declared that it was the injunction to love God with all one’s heart (Deuteronomy 6:5). He went on to quote from Leviticus 19:18: “The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

Religious teachers have always inculcated the principle of benevolence or goodwill or love to one’s fellows. What was so new about the words of Jesus at the Last Supper?

The novelty was twofold. First, Jesus added a cutting edge to an old ideal. If you preach about love no one quarrels with what you say—so long as you keep it vague and abstract. It is when you get down to the practical application of the idea that you provoke people. (He’s getting personal now!) Everyone will agree that loving the human race is hugely desirable. It is loving the people next to us that we cannot stomach.

The command Jesus gives will not let us get away with that. It takes our eyes away from distant horizons and fastens them on the person next door. When we ponder these words we begin to see that there is certainly a new commandment because it is linked with the life of the new community which Jesus is beginning—

His Church. They must love one another or the whole thing would be a sham.

But He did not leave it there. The greater novelty, indeed the essential newness, lay in the force of His personal example and the demand that they measure up to it. “Love… as I have loved you” (John 13:34, 35).

In greater measure, this is a new commandment because Jesus gives His personal image to the ideal of love. “Love as I have loved you” must mean a costly, caring love.

This is the eleventh commandment. Orthodoxy is important; moral rectitude is a vital foundation for the Christian life; faith needs works and is dead without them. But above all there must be love for the brethren, for by this are Christ’s disciples to be known.

David Guy, The Eleven Commandments

 

VIDEO No More Shame, reclaim the joy that’s yours

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  –John 16:33

As I look at our world today, I see so many people who are afraid – they’re worried about the future, fearful about the present, and ashamed about the past. These fears act like emotional drags upon their spirit that keep them from becoming all that God has called them to be.

But Jesus Christ came so that those fears that paralyze might be overcome. He is the answer to every fear because He comes into our lives with grace, peace, and joy when we place our faith in Him for the forgiveness of our sins.

So why is it that so many people today – even Christians – live under the oppression of fear and worry? I think that one reason is that they’ve trusted Christ for eternal life, but don’t honestly believe He can make a difference in their lives today. This gives the enemy a foothold, allowing him to create incessant anxiety in their lives.

But in Christ, you have the power to overcome because He has already overcome. You can tell the world and the enemy, “I’m not letting you steal my joy!”

This day, make it your goal to live in the joy of Jesus Christ, trusting fully that He can change not only your future, but your past and present as well because He has already overcome!

JESUS CHRIST CAN CHANGE NOT ONLY YOUR FUTURE, BUT ALSO YOUR PRESENT. SO TRUST IN HIM TO GIVE YOU JOY AND HOPE FOR TODAY!

By Dr. Jack Graham

---

No More Shame

 

Our world needs the soul-saving and healing message of Jesus Christ. But it won’t get it through more church programs, bigger events, better marketing strategies, and the latest outreach methodologies. We can only transform the world when we choose to live totally for Jesus—set ABLAZE through the power of the Holy Spirit! Follow Pastor Graham as he takes you through this power-packed study of the first seven chapters of Acts. You’ll see how the early Church did so much with so little, and you’ll find a fresh fire burning bright in your heart to reach the world for Christ!

Parade of Colors

With your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. Revelation 5:9

For decades, London has been one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. In 1933, journalist Glyn Roberts wrote of England’s great capital, “I still think the parade of peoples and colours and tongues is just about the best thing in London.” That “parade” is still in evidence today with the blended smells, sounds, and sights of a global community. The beauty of diversity is part of the breathtaking appeal of one of the world’s greatest cities.

As with any city inhabited by human beings, however, London is not without its problems. Change brings challenges. Cultures sometimes clash. And that is one of the reasons no city built by human hands can compare to the wonder of our eternal home.

When the apostle John was transported into the presence of God, diversity was one of the elements of heavenly worship, as the redeemed sang, “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9–10).

Imagine heaven: a parade of every people group in the world celebrating the wonder of being children of the living God—together! As believers in Jesus, may we celebrate that diversity today.

By:  Bill Crowder

Reflect & Pray

What are the best things about the church being so diverse? What can make that diversity occasionally challenging?

Father, I thank You that no people group is excluded from Your great love. Teach us to truly love one another, as You have so generously loved us.

Sunday Reflection: The Lord’s Heart for His People

To get the most out of this devotion, set aside time to read the Scripture referenced throughout.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where we find the Beatitudes, wasn’t about how to be more polite or acceptable in society. The Lord wanted to remind His followers that God examines the heart—He searches out our devotion to Him in every area of our life, including our most inward thoughts and desires.

That truth corresponds to another of Jesus’ important lessons, which is found in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). The younger son turns away from his father and his family, pursuing pleasure and satisfaction in the material world. Then, desolate, he journeys homeward only to see his father running toward him from a long way off. So it is with our heavenly Father: In His great love, He runs toward His beloved children to reconcile them to Himself, no matter where they’ve been or what they’ve done.

Think about it

• Read the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. Do you relate more to the elder or younger brother?
• Think of the father in the story as a representation of God. How does it feel to know the Lord’s heart for you remains unchanged, regardless of your choices or time spent away from Him?