AUGUST 9

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

Matthew 6:33

 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.”

HELEN STEINER RICE:

Life without purpose is barren indeed – There can’t be a harvest unless you plant seed,

There can’t be attainment unless there’s a goal, and man’s but a robot unless there’s a soul ….

If we send no ships out, no ships will come in, and unless there’s a contest, nobody can win….

For games can’t be won unless they are played, and prayers can’t be answered unless they are prayed….

So whatever is wrong with your life today, you’ll find a solution if you kneel down and pray

Not just for pleasure, enjoyment and health, not just for honors and prestige and wealth…

But pray for a purpose to make life worth living, and pray for the joy of unselfish giving,

For great is your gladness and rich your reward when you make your life’s purpose the choice of the Lord.

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This month we will continue 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.

Philippians 3:20-21

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”

WHATEVER HAPPENS……PROTECT YOURSELF INTO THE FUTURE

For months, my thoughts troubled me during the day and my dreams at night.  Then the Lord gave me two verses of Scripture that spoke clearly to my weary soul. 

Isaiah 43:18-19:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”

This reminds me of Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13-14:

“forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Why don’t we dwell on these things more?  Why aren’t we more excited every day about the glorious future God has revealed to us in His Word?  We get so caught up in the “here and now” that we forget the “then and there.”

The contemplation of our future inheritance in Christ, our heavenly home, our glorious reunion with the saints of all the ages, and our mansions in the new earth and in the city of New Jerusalem would save us from much of the despair and depression that dogs us here on earth.

Our verse for today (top of page) Philippians 3:20-21 sums this up…….our citizenship in heaven ….

Let us think about the day when we meet Him in the air…….described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

Paul tells us this  in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44: (for those who trust Jesus’ salvation and not their own good works):

“ 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.”

Samuel Dunn, from years past, addressed this in a sermon:

“As Christ is risen form the dead; as He has destroyed the destroyer, spoiled the grave, burst the barriers of the tomb, opened the iron gates of death, our resurrection will follow.  He rose in our nature, as our representative.  His resurrection was a proof, a pledge, an earnest of ours ….The resurrection will be a miraculous work, performed by Christ.  “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ will all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Reverend Dunn went on to admit how perplexing it is to imagine how our bodies, reduced by time to dust to be blown in the wind and washed away in the flood, could be reclaimed, reconstituted, and resurrected and we still retain our same identity.  “But He who first formed it from the dust of the earth is able to do it,”  he said.  “To Omnipotence, it is possible — it is easy.”

Those who have fallen asleep in Christ, as the apostle Paul put it, will yet be “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14), in the moment of our resurrection as in the moment of our conception.

As soon as the voice of the Son of God shall strike its ear, the body will awaken, molecule joining molecule, reversing the dying process, and being remade through resurrection into a body that will no more be subject to pain, disease or death.

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