Note from Jesus

Dear Follower,

Resurrection is coming. I will return for those who belong to Me. At My coming, everyone who belongs to Me will be given an immortal body. Just as you have carried the body that has been part of your human existence and that is mortal because of Adam’s rebellion against the Father, you also will be transformed because of My victory over death. You will have an immortal body far more glorious than you can fully imagine. My resurrection from the dead is the assurance of your resurrection. My glorious body after My resurrection is the assurance of your glorious body after your resurrection.

I know you would like to know all the details about life after death. Let it be enough to know that when you are My disciple, the Holy Spirit Who is alive in you ensures that you will never be separated from Me and that your resurrection is assured (Romans 8:32-39; 1 Corinthians 15:21-26). When death claims your physical body, you come to be with Me (Philippians 1:19-24; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8). Then, when the Father says it is time, I will return and change all who belong to Me to have immortal bodies to share in the resurrection and reunion (Philippians 3:20-21). You will share in the glory of all that the Father has promised you.

Your future existence in this immortal state is impossible for you to grasp fully now. Paul helps you catch a glimpse of this glorious future by using an example from your earthly existence. A seed that you place in the ground is not particularly beautiful. It is simple and earthy. But when it is placed in the ground and dies to its current existence, a transformation happens that is a part of a new life. The seed germinates, grows, and becomes something glorious. The seed is not glorious when compared to the flower of the fully-grown plant. Your physical bodies, though marvelously made, are just a seed compared to the glory of the new bodily existence that you will enjoy with Me when we share in glory together.

Death is an intruder that wounds hearts. However, when someone you love and who is My disciple is separated from you by death, remember that death is not only My enemy but that I also have ultimately defeated death and its power. While death may separate you for a short time from those you love, My resurrection ensures your resurrection and your reunion with all those who are Mine! So, no matter what your earthly life throws at you — how it disappoints you, wounds you, beats you down, or discourages you — I have defeated death. Death will not have the ultimate victory over you. Death will not determine the ultimate outcome of your life. You are Mine! Your future glory beyond death is in My hands! Transformation, reunion, victory, and a life in glory are your future!

Verses to Live

The following words come from what many people have called the resurrection chapter of the Bible. Paul wanted the Corinthian Christians to know that because I was raised from the dead, they will also be raised from the dead. Please, take the time to savor Paul’s words. Dwell on them. Let them give you hope. Commit the phrases that mean the most to you to memory for those times when you need them most. Remember, your faith in Me is not wasted, and your hope in Me is not in vain!

Now if we have told you about the Anointed One (how He has risen from the dead and appeared to us fully alive), then how can you stand there and say there is no such thing as resurrection from death? Friends, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then even the Anointed hasn’t been raised; if that is so, then all our preaching has been for nothing and your faith in the message is worthless. And what’s worse, all of us who have been preaching the gospel are now guilty of misrepresenting God because we have been spreading the news that He raised the Anointed One from the dead (which must be a lie if what you are saying about the dead not being raised is the truth).

Please listen. If you say, “the dead are not raised,” then what you are telling me is that the Anointed One has not been raised. Friends, if the Anointed has not been raised from the dead, then your faith is worth less than yesterday’s garbage, you are all doomed in your sins, and all the dearly departed who trusted in His liberation are left decaying in the ground. If what we have hoped for in the Anointed doesn’t take us beyond this life, then we are world-class fools, deserving everyone’s pity.

But the Anointed One was raised from death’s slumber and is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death.

(1 Corinthians 15:12-20)

Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Just how are the dead going to be raised? What kind of bodies will they have when they come back to life?”

Don’t be a fool! The seed you plant doesn’t produce life unless it dies. Right? The seed doesn’t have the same look, the same body, if you will, of what it will have once it starts to grow. It starts out a single, naked seed — whether wheat or some other grain, it doesn’t matter — and God gives to that seed a body just as He has desired. For each of the different kinds of seeds God prepares a unique body.

Or look at it this way: not all flesh is the same. Right? There is skin flesh on humans, furry flesh on animals, feathery flesh on birds, and scaly flesh on fish. Likewise there are bodies made for the heavens and bodies made for the earth. The heavenly bodies have a different kind of glory or luminescence compared to bodies below. Even among the heavenly bodies, there is a different level of brilliance: the sun shines differently than the moon, the moon differently than the stars, and the stars themselves differ in their brightness.

It’s like this with the resurrection of those who have died. The body planted in the earth decays. But the body raised from the earth cannot decay. The body is planted in disgrace and weakness. But the body is raised in splendor and power. The body planted in the earth was animated by the physical, material realm. But the body raised from the earth will be animated by the spiritual. Since there is a physical, material body, there will also be a spiritual body.

That’s why it was written, “The first man Adam became a living soul”; the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. Everything has an order. The body is not animated first by the spiritual but the physical; then the spiritual becomes its life-giving source. The first man, Adam, came from the earth and was made from dust; the second man, Jesus, has come from heaven. The earth man shares his earth nature with all those made of earth; likewise the heavenly man shares His heavenly nature with all those made of heaven. Just as we have carried the image of the earth man in our bodies, we will also carry the image of the heavenly man in our new bodies at the resurrection.

Now listen to this: brothers and sisters, this present body is not able to inherit the kingdom of God any more than decay can inherit that which lasts forever. Stay close because I am going to tell you a mystery — something you may have trouble understanding: we will not all fall asleep in death, but we will all be transformed. It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life. And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:

Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death.

Hey, Death! What happened to your big win?

Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?

Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed. Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law. Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, Who brought us victory over the grave.

My dear brothers and sisters, stay firmly planted — be unshakable — do many good works in the name of God, and know that all your labor is not for nothing when it is for God.

(1 Corinthians 15:35-58)

Response in Prayer

O Father, please carve these words on my heart so that I can remember them when times of discouragement come because of the death of those I love. Bring these words back to me when I face my own mortality. I cannot help, dear Father, but think of those who are hanging onto these words right now as they are being martyred for their faith by those who preach hate and death in the name of religion. Please, dear Father, work in our human history to stop this hate-based genocide of our Christian brothers and sisters and their children because of their faith. And, dear Father, please give those who face death because of their faith in Jesus a sense of His being with them every step of the way until they are blessed by His presence with them until death is swallowed up in life. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

‘A Year with Jesus’ is written by Phil Ware.

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Voice™. © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.