JULY 17

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

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NAMES FOR GOD:

EL ELOHIM JEHOVAH—MIGHTY ONE, GOD, LORD

EL ELYON—MOST HIGH GOD

EL EMUNAH—FAITHFUL GOD

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This month we will read the book, “Whatever Happens – How to Stand Firm in Your Faith When the World is Falling Apart.”  By a contemporary author of many best-selling Christian books, Robert J. Morgan.  He took care of his wife when she had MS, until she went home to her Savior.  “He knows of which he speaks.”  I pray that this book blesses you.

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Today’s reading, while definitely for every Christian, has some special thoughts for widows and those who have lost other loved ones)

Philippians 1:20-26

“ according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.  Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.  And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith,  that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again.”

TO DIE IS GAIN

Pressing further into our passage in Philippians, let’s read verse 21:  “For to me, to live is Christ and TO DIE IS GAIN.”  With this word and in the verses to follow, Paul painted a fourfold picture of the moment we die, or rather, DEPART to be with Christ.

The word “gain” –“ kerdos” – is used in the New Testament in reference to financial gain.  It means to make a large profit.  When we die, we come into an eternal life of divine dividends.  In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul told of a vision in which he was caught up to heaven and given a glimpse of the heavenly inheritance that was awaiting him. It was beyond description.  He knew death for him would be a gain.

I DESIRE TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST

Paul was not afraid of death.  In Philippians 1:23, he said, “I am torn between (living and dying):  I DESIRE TO DEPART.  Paul’s use of “depart” was a nautical term.  The Greeks used it to indicate raising the anchor and sailing from the harbor.  Katrina and I took a cruise once.  We flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico, showed up at the port, and I rolled her in her wheelchair onto the ship.  We had a wonderful room, heard the loud whistle blow; we felt the ship move, and we sat on the balcony and watched San Juan disappear as we traveled into the open sea, bound for some island.  It was relaxing and idyllic.

That’s the way Paul looked at death:  “I desire to depart AND BE WITH CHRIST.  He was ready to depart because he knew he would be with Christ.  While we serve on earth, Christ lives within and around us by His Holy Spirit, but He  Himself resides in heaven.  The moment we depart for heaven, we’re transported into the very presence of Jesus Himself, where we will see Him face -to-face, talk with Him person to person, enjoy Him friend to friend, and worship him as servant to Master.  He told the Corinthian church that being absent from the body would mean he was present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

(While we’re on the subject of grief and ships, I often think of the comparison of losing a loved one, to a ship leaving a harbor.   If you are watching the ship from the departing harbor, the ship gets smaller and smaller, until it is gone……a depressing thought.   But someone watching that same ship from the  harbor of its destination, sees the distant speck gradually enlarge into the ship they have been awaiting for a long time.   That’s how Jesus sees our loved one’s death, compared to how we see it.   We must try to see it as He does.)

TO BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER

Paul continued his explanation to the Philippians:  “I desire to depart and be with Christ, WHICH IS FAR BETTER BY FAR.”   It wasn’t just better – it was better by far!  Suppose you came to see me in the hospital where I was in constant pain and had a temperature of 104.  You would say, “How are you?”  I would say, “I am languishing.”   A month later, you  call and ask again how I am.  I would say, “I’m better.  I’m at home.  My fever and pain are gone, and I’m regaining my strength.”  Another month later, you would call to see how I am.  “Oh,” I’ say,  “My family and I are driving down the Pacific coast Highway in California, looking for a place to have supper while we watch the sunset.  I am healed.  I am well, and vacationing.  I am  BETTER BY FAR”  That’s the language Paul was using.  There is no superlative greater than that.  That’s why we can adopt as our motto:  TO ME, TO LIVE IS CHRIST AND TO DIE IS GAIN.

I recently spoke to a very dear woman named Betty Byrd.  She and her husband, Cecil, had served the Lord in Africa for many years.  Their teenagers and a visiting intern were living there with them.  On the night of January 20, 2000, after a game of Monopoly, the family headed for their beds.  It was just another ordinary night in Mozambique.

Suddenly their son, Daniel, burst into the bedroom, “Mom, Mom,” he cried.  “did you hear those gunshots?”  As he spoke, four bandits with AK-47’s entered the house, shot Ceil in the chest, killing him, and forced Daniel to escort them from the area.  Thankfully they let Daniel live.

Betty recalled that in the days that followed, Philippians 1:21 acquired fresh meaning for her.  “I claimed it,” she told me.  “For to me, to live IS Christ: to die IS gain.  The death part was for my husband; I knew he had gained.  While he was on earth, he very much said, “to live is Christ.”  But the Lord took him and that was his gain.  The living part was now for me, and I was determined to make life worth living.  Christ was and is my motivation.  God would not let me give up.”

As I researched her story a bit more, I found a transcript of a podcast that featured her testimony.  In it, Betty says that she is not the same person she was before her husband died.  She’s stronger.  Braver.  Even more joyful.

“I think I am more outspoken.  I have a little bit more courage,”  Betty reflected.  “I don’t even know how to say this, but in some ways, I have more joy.  I’ve always been a happy person and felt the peace and joy of Jesus in my life, but I just feel my joy growing and growing even in these seventeen years since Cecil’s death.”

One day while speaking at a convention in Atlanta, Betty was praying about her grief.  She had her Bible open and noticed the verse in Nehemiah that said, “the joy of the Lord is your strength”  (Neh 8:10).  Then she noticed something she hadn’t seen before:

“Just before it says, ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength,’ it says, ‘Do not grieve.”  I had never thought about that before.  From that day forth, I thought, ‘Okay, there is a time to grieve, but now is the time for grieving to be ended and to let the joy of the Lord be my strength.  Now, He just keeps increasing it.’”

Let’s have a relationship with Christ like that – one so meaningful we can say with all our hearts: “Whether I live or whether I die, my song shall be:  Jesus is with me.  Praise the Lord!”

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