This was my passage that I read today. As soon as I finished reading it this morning, a warmth crept over me. It just made me smile. I don't know that I've ever really paid attention to the end before. I want to suffer with death, so that I might experience resurrection. Wow. I don't think of death as a particularly welcoming thing. Here we see there is a reason to welcome death. It still doesn't make me want to die or anything... but I can see this being a verse to cling to when being faced with death.
I also like the verse right before that. God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. Being with God depends on faith. If we lack faith, we are going nowhere. The best example of faith I am thinking of this morning is found in Matthew.
21 for she thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”
22 Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said,
This woman had faith in Jesus so much so that she knew that if she could just touch his robe, she would be healed of her affliction. He felt the faith within her immediately, and she was healed. Imagine the joy that she experienced, knowing that she had found her faith in the right thing, and furthermore, to be healed of a horrible disease because of that faith. We too can experience that joy through our faith. And while it may very well be someday the gift of healing. For now we can know that our faith is what is going to get us in the door to heaven.
2 comments:
In a way, we experience death (obviously not physical) everyday. We are to die to self, which I think must be a daily thing and live again (are resurrected) to a new life in Christ. It is a surrender to Him and His path daily. I fall on this daily but He is faithful to forgive and grant grace to me, His child!
Ah yes, I bet that's what this verse is talking about, much more so than physical death.
I think most people fail daily in their surrendering to God. I sure know I do. Thank God for his grace that allows us to get back up and try again. Lamentations 3:23 says "They are new every morning. Great is your fiathfulness." Every morning! :-) That is truly a wonderful thought.
Post a Comment