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We have so much invested in that “place” where those who died in Him experience a new mode of being in His nearer presence that is even “far better” than now even though now for so many of us life’s not at all bad, with blessings galore, beloved family members and friends. We win either way.
Psalm 119:46 is one of our texts. I DO understand that it can be tricky and we need to be wise in our approach but dear God, with our gospel of RESURRECTION that says it doesn’t end with the death of Christ but with His immortal life, surely we have something to say worth saying. And despite the complexities of the Story even His dying is living!
And in His rising He says, “Did you think it ends with Death? Never! I was sharing what you, my beloved human family, have and will share but I died to let you know that Death and Sin are losers! I did it for you. You have questions? Of course you do! You wonder about all the brutalized who know nothing about Me and are kept in hopelessness? Trust Me! If you in the midst of your own troubles can sometimes feel anguish for them who suffer in despair, with no reason to hope—if you can feel for them, trust Me, I do and I died and rose for them also. Feel what you feel, do what you can, but trust Me. Think noble thoughts of my Holy Father whose will I love to do.”
Paul closes out 1 Corinthians 15 shouting! Jeering at the grave and Death and then says, “So, don’t grow weary in well-doing; what you do, how you live, what you say, the hymns you sing, the prayers you pray, the tears you shed, the illnesses you endure, the kindness you engage in, the forgiveness you offer—all that while you trust in Him—it isn’t empty! It’s not in vain! Unending joy comes in the morning! However painful, and at times it will be excruciating—you’re vulnerable little humans right now living in a world that has experienced and is experiencing a moral wreck of cosmic proportions and life can’t be otherwise than it is right now, but see it as part of the adventure. There’s a day coming when countless glorified, deathless, happy, and united lovers of warm righteousness will dance on the graves of Sin and Death and LIVE in unending astonishment at who they have become. Right now you’re doing what He did, you’re taking your share of hurt and loneliness and death.”
He tells us even now, “I’m doing it again in you, you are My Body, you are parts of Me, I’m showing in you that suffering and death in Me is the path to unimaginable glory. There’s a new day and a new world of living coming. TRUST ME! If it were not so I would have told you! Wouldn’t I?
Wouldn’t I? Come! LIVE with Me! Die with Me and LIVE forever with Me!”
