Post by Cindy on Jan 11, 2016 13:56:00 GMT -5
As I fast forwarded through commercials so I could watch my show the other day, it hit me again how very hard we try to deny death, somehow, someway. It seems that we're constantly being shown how we can look "decades younger", or all kinds of stuff like that, because obviously if we age, we're then getting closer to that awful bogyman, death. A scripture came to mind, that I once had a lot of trouble understanding. For a long time I'd just skim over it, thinking, "I believe it, but don't have a clue what it really means, so I'll ignore it for now." Maybe some of you had that problem too. Here it is: “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”” (John 11:25–26) I didn't get it because we see and hear of people we are sure are born again, dying every day. So how can this be true? Reflecting on it brought me back to when I was a child of about 11 years old. I was laying in bed and trying to figure out where the "real me" existed. I thought to myself, if I cut off my legs, I'd still be me, if I lost my arms I'd still be me. I went through every part of my body (that I was aware of then), and decided if those parts were missing or even replaced with someone elses, I would still be me. I wouldn't turn into the other person if I got their blood or their heart or their lungs, etc. Finally, there was nothing left except my head, so I went through that, thinking the same things about my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, etc, till again, there was nothing left but my brain, and with all those gone or replaced with another person's, I'd still be me. When I thought about my brain, I decided most of what it did was thinking, like I was right then, but thinking wasn't the "real me", it was just a part of how I expressed myself and how I made my body work, so again, I decided that my brain didn't contain the "real me" either. That left me very puzzled, because there wasn't any place left for the "real me" to be. My parents didn't believe in God so I didn't know much about Him except that I loved Him and that He could do anything since He was God. Sadly, because I didn't yet know His Word, I couldn't take my thoughts any further that night. But, as an adult, when I began to finally work out this scripture, the Lord reminded me of these thoughts. I realized then that Jesus meant exactly what He said.
We see "being alive" as what we do in this body, but that's not it at all. It's no more then another "stage" in our life. We think nothing of the fact that a snake can shed it's skin, but in a way, that's what death is for us. It's shedding this skin for a much, much better one. You could say we're trading up for a better model. We think nothing of it when we go to sleep at night. We know we'll wake up in the morning, because we've been waking up every morning of our life, and we've seen that everyone else sleeps and wakes up the next day too. It's when people stop waking up that gives us problems because we can no longer see what they're doing. Because of that, we generally assume that they're not doing anything and we call that being "dead". I decided many years ago because of this, that we have the whole idea of "death" wrong. It's not the end, not for us who are saved. For someone who's not saved, they need to be scared. Terrified would be better, because they'll be in Hell suffering. For those who do believe and are born again, we have nothing to fear at all, and really should be looking forward to it. It's graduation day for us! We finally get to see our God and our Savior, the Lord and love of our life, face to face. We'll finally be able to know Him fully, the way He's always known us: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
Oh, I can see there being a little trepidation maybe; perhaps like a bride feels on her wedding day. (maybe grooms feel this way too, but not being a man, I don't know). The bride is thrilled and this is the happiest day of her life. She's about to marry the man she loves with all her heart and start a brand new life with Him. The scary part is simply the "unknown". "Will his eyes light up when he sees her walking down that aisle?" (of course they will!) Will she be a good wife for him? What if he doesn't like her cooking?" All kinds of silly questions go through our minds at that time, and there's a part of us that knows they're silly, but we still feel a little scared anyway. That's how we should view death. (I don't mean we should view it like a wedding, but rather that we should look forward to it with excitement and anticipation.) Childhood is over now, and we're about to step into our adult role as a child of God. We will never, not even for one second, have to deal with a sin nature again. We will never be bothered by Satan or his cohorts again. The world can't hold a candle to what Heaven has to offer us and it's all ours now, so the world can't tempt us even a tiny bit anymore. What is there about this world that we'd miss? Our loved ones? Not if they're saved, they'll be joining us shortly so we won't have time to miss them. I can't think of a single thing that would hold me to this world, knowing that in less then a second I'll be with the wonderful God who loves and treasures me and even delights in me!
I say "less then a second" meaning that at the same instant this body dies, we're in glory, not some waiting room, nor are we sleeping. We'll be wide awake. Here, in this world, when we see someone who's dead, we imagine them doing just what their body is doing...laying somewhere asleep, but that's an illusion, not the truth. God's Word tells us that when this body dies, we will instantly be with the Lord who loves us and died for us, and will in that same instant have been given a new body. I know we covered all this about the body itself in another article so I won't get into that here. Let's say a person gets sick and according to this world, dies in their bed. To those watching, it will appear that the person isn't doing anything. After all, their body is lying completely still on the bed. But, for the person who's body just died, they'll be wide awake in heaven rejoicing with Jesus. It will happen so fast that they may not even realize that they have a different body at first. Especially since they'll be filling themselves with the sight, sound, smell and touch of their precious Savior. But once things have calmed down, then they'll probably realize that the body is different then the one they'd had moments before.
Basically, what I'm trying to get across is that Jesus said exactly what He meant and what was and is exactly true. Once we are saved, we will never, ever, die! We have already begun our Eternal lives. If you're saved then, you have nothing at all to worry about or fear. Personally, I quite literally, can't wait till it's my time to go Home, because to me, that's what it's all about. it's going Home to the One who has always loved and cared for me. Look at what Jesus said about what God had told the Israelites about Himself: “‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”” (Matthew 22:32) If we reflect on that we realize that the Father said this long after these people "died". But He was saying that these folks were every bit as much alive as the ones listening to Jesus that day. Actually, when we really think about it, they're actually MORE alive then the ones who were listening to Jesus, and even more alive then we are right this very second! They're "more alive" because they're no longer inhibited by the illusions of this world. They can see true reality, we can't do that yet. (which is why we must live by faith) Remember starting in 2 Kings 6:15 when Elisha's servant got scared and the prophet prayed that God would open his eyes so he could see the truth of the situation? God did and the servant saw that the enemy army surrounding them was in turn surrounded by God's army! Amazing! Things like that are happening constantly, all around us, but we don't see them, hear them and of course, can't touch them, but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can! That's what I mean when I say they are no longer seeing things through the illusions of this world. That's how everyone who's saved sees once they're in Heaven; that's how we'll see. It's like we're all babies, still in the womb, and when we're born into Heaven, we'll be able to see what's been going on all around us the whole time that we couldn't see before.
We won't die, not ever, because we already died when we were saved: “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:3–4) We're told over and over again that we will never die, but we usually don't really believe it. Instead, we believe the illusion we see in this world. Maybe that's why God put it in His Word so often, wanting us to really grasp it. Forgive me if I rambled a bit, but it's hard for me to explain what I'm thinking. I'll leave you with a few of them:
“But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”” (John 6:50–51)
“I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”” (John 8:51)
“Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:19)
God is so awesome!
We see "being alive" as what we do in this body, but that's not it at all. It's no more then another "stage" in our life. We think nothing of the fact that a snake can shed it's skin, but in a way, that's what death is for us. It's shedding this skin for a much, much better one. You could say we're trading up for a better model. We think nothing of it when we go to sleep at night. We know we'll wake up in the morning, because we've been waking up every morning of our life, and we've seen that everyone else sleeps and wakes up the next day too. It's when people stop waking up that gives us problems because we can no longer see what they're doing. Because of that, we generally assume that they're not doing anything and we call that being "dead". I decided many years ago because of this, that we have the whole idea of "death" wrong. It's not the end, not for us who are saved. For someone who's not saved, they need to be scared. Terrified would be better, because they'll be in Hell suffering. For those who do believe and are born again, we have nothing to fear at all, and really should be looking forward to it. It's graduation day for us! We finally get to see our God and our Savior, the Lord and love of our life, face to face. We'll finally be able to know Him fully, the way He's always known us: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
Oh, I can see there being a little trepidation maybe; perhaps like a bride feels on her wedding day. (maybe grooms feel this way too, but not being a man, I don't know). The bride is thrilled and this is the happiest day of her life. She's about to marry the man she loves with all her heart and start a brand new life with Him. The scary part is simply the "unknown". "Will his eyes light up when he sees her walking down that aisle?" (of course they will!) Will she be a good wife for him? What if he doesn't like her cooking?" All kinds of silly questions go through our minds at that time, and there's a part of us that knows they're silly, but we still feel a little scared anyway. That's how we should view death. (I don't mean we should view it like a wedding, but rather that we should look forward to it with excitement and anticipation.) Childhood is over now, and we're about to step into our adult role as a child of God. We will never, not even for one second, have to deal with a sin nature again. We will never be bothered by Satan or his cohorts again. The world can't hold a candle to what Heaven has to offer us and it's all ours now, so the world can't tempt us even a tiny bit anymore. What is there about this world that we'd miss? Our loved ones? Not if they're saved, they'll be joining us shortly so we won't have time to miss them. I can't think of a single thing that would hold me to this world, knowing that in less then a second I'll be with the wonderful God who loves and treasures me and even delights in me!
I say "less then a second" meaning that at the same instant this body dies, we're in glory, not some waiting room, nor are we sleeping. We'll be wide awake. Here, in this world, when we see someone who's dead, we imagine them doing just what their body is doing...laying somewhere asleep, but that's an illusion, not the truth. God's Word tells us that when this body dies, we will instantly be with the Lord who loves us and died for us, and will in that same instant have been given a new body. I know we covered all this about the body itself in another article so I won't get into that here. Let's say a person gets sick and according to this world, dies in their bed. To those watching, it will appear that the person isn't doing anything. After all, their body is lying completely still on the bed. But, for the person who's body just died, they'll be wide awake in heaven rejoicing with Jesus. It will happen so fast that they may not even realize that they have a different body at first. Especially since they'll be filling themselves with the sight, sound, smell and touch of their precious Savior. But once things have calmed down, then they'll probably realize that the body is different then the one they'd had moments before.
Basically, what I'm trying to get across is that Jesus said exactly what He meant and what was and is exactly true. Once we are saved, we will never, ever, die! We have already begun our Eternal lives. If you're saved then, you have nothing at all to worry about or fear. Personally, I quite literally, can't wait till it's my time to go Home, because to me, that's what it's all about. it's going Home to the One who has always loved and cared for me. Look at what Jesus said about what God had told the Israelites about Himself: “‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”” (Matthew 22:32) If we reflect on that we realize that the Father said this long after these people "died". But He was saying that these folks were every bit as much alive as the ones listening to Jesus that day. Actually, when we really think about it, they're actually MORE alive then the ones who were listening to Jesus, and even more alive then we are right this very second! They're "more alive" because they're no longer inhibited by the illusions of this world. They can see true reality, we can't do that yet. (which is why we must live by faith) Remember starting in 2 Kings 6:15 when Elisha's servant got scared and the prophet prayed that God would open his eyes so he could see the truth of the situation? God did and the servant saw that the enemy army surrounding them was in turn surrounded by God's army! Amazing! Things like that are happening constantly, all around us, but we don't see them, hear them and of course, can't touch them, but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can! That's what I mean when I say they are no longer seeing things through the illusions of this world. That's how everyone who's saved sees once they're in Heaven; that's how we'll see. It's like we're all babies, still in the womb, and when we're born into Heaven, we'll be able to see what's been going on all around us the whole time that we couldn't see before.
We won't die, not ever, because we already died when we were saved: “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:3–4) We're told over and over again that we will never die, but we usually don't really believe it. Instead, we believe the illusion we see in this world. Maybe that's why God put it in His Word so often, wanting us to really grasp it. Forgive me if I rambled a bit, but it's hard for me to explain what I'm thinking. I'll leave you with a few of them:
“But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”” (John 6:50–51)
“I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”” (John 8:51)
“Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:19)
God is so awesome!
!!
