Devotional Guide For the week of March 23, 2008
THE LIFE TO COME?
About heavenıs location
To read the Bible in one year, today read Job 25-27
To Know:
³Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with
them
in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with
the Lord² (1 Thess. 4:17)
The resurrection of Jesus raises the question of where heaven will finally
be located. The redeemed humanity will live in heaven forever, but where
will heaven be? Jesus is in heaven today. We cannot give the location
except
to say that wherever heaven is, Jesus is. The day is coming when Jesus
will
be back here on earth. When that day dawns, heaven will be here.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 through 18 has been curiously interpreted to teach
that
Christ is coming into the region of the clouds to catch up the church and
take her back to heaven. The text does not say so. Jesus is described as
coming to earth the same way ancient emperors came back to Rome leading
their victorious legions. The first century reader must certainly have
understood that Christ would end up standing on the earth. Since Paul was
likening Christ the Lord to lord Caesar, these same readers must have
grasped that the believers, recovered from their graves and received up
from
the earth, were joining him in his coming. The apostle is describing
Christıs triumphal train.
The movement of God in all scripture is toward the earth. It is here that
heaven will be finalized for all eternity to come. The implications are
enormous.
To Do:
Hollywood always ****trays heaven as insipid. It is life evacuated of
anything worth living for. The Bible shows heaven as a red-blooded (Christ
rose in a body) place where life is lived untainted by the suffering sin
has
inflicted on this world. Heaven is not the cancellation of the world. We
who
believe ought to be living a life fit for heaven now.
To Ask:
Father, help me to properly appreciate the fact that heavenly existence
fulfills life and doesnıt deny it.
03268$-03268
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