From Dead to Alive
A new Pastor in a small Oklahoma town spent the first four days making personal visits to each of the members, inviting them to come to his first services.
The following Sunday the church was all but empty. The Pastor proceeded to place a notice in the local newspapers, stating that, because the church was dead, it was everyone's duty to give it a decent Christian burial. The funeral would be held the following Sunday afternoon, the notice said. Being pessimistic and curious, a large crowd turned out for the "funeral." In front of the pulpit, they saw a closed coffin, smothered in flowers. After the Pastor delivered the eulogy, he opened the coffin and invited his congregation to come forward and pay their final respects to their dead church. Filled with curiosity as to what would represent the corpse of a "dead church," all the people eagerly lined up to look in the coffin. Each "mourner" glimpsed into the coffin then quickly turned away with a guilty, ashamed look. In the coffin, tilted at the correct angle, was a large mirror.
We should always pray that we don’t become a dead church in the eyes of God Almighty. God is omniscience, omnipotent, omnipresent bringing forth His love, inspiration, hope, and life to our hearts, soul, and minds. God says in Exodus 3:6:“I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
He is the living never changing eternal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and of us today. As written in Hebrews 13:8; 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Again, He is our living God. We must acknowledge His sovereign Deity. We need to apply His holiness within us to be alive as a church. Amen! We don’t want to become a dead and complacent church as written by John spoken by
Jesus Christ in Revelation 3: “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 4 You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 5He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
The believers in Sardis were complacent and lacked spiritual vigilance, they were close to death. It says there were a few who did not defile their garments. The question is as a church; do we want to be close to death and defile our garments? I pray not. We must overcome and stay alive as a church. Do we want clean garments? I would pray so. As a Church, we want to be alive as God is alive. Jesus Christ says He will not blot our names from the Book of Life and He will confess us before His Father. That His promise. We need to take that to heart.
This brought forth the scriptures that was put in my heart for today for the blessed hope we have in Christ Jesus that keeps us the church alive. I pray this sends hope to our souls, minds, and hearts with stimulating confidence what our God has establish through His Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that He accomplished on the cross to set us free. We must be ready for our blessed hope that will keep us alive as a church.
In Titus 2:14-14; it says looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,14who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
Are we tuned in to our blessed hope? We should be. Think about what is said; Jesus Christ gave Himself for us to redeem us. Imagine we are purified for Himself as His own special people. How mind blowing is that! That should definitely keep us in the direction of an alive church.
In 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 it says,Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.53For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.54So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory” 56The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,Always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
This verse relates to the rapture of the church, as the trumpet blows, the rapture occurs, and we will be all changed, in a twinkling of an eye (God’s eye).
How can we measure the twinkling of God’s eye, we really can’t because He is God. But, in man’s terms and calculations think how fast the twinkling of the eye is. There’s has been mathematicians who have studied the twinkling of the eye? There are three portions of time to consider here, The wink, the blink and the twink. A blink is a controlled movement of the eye and so it's length of time is unspecified, but the quickest blink lasts for a half second. A blink is a reflex action of the eye and lasts somewhere between 300 and 400 milliseconds. That’s fast for just a blink of the eye. A twink is a reflected particle of light seen in the eye and thusly travels at the speed of light (the speed of light is a blazing 186,282 miles per second). This equates to a minute small fraction of a second, so it would be fair to say the twinkling of the eye occurs in about a billionth of a second (which in itself is such a small period of time as to be nearly inconceivable, but is gigantic compared to the actual time in which a twinkle occurs).
Jesus Christ is the true light of His creation.
Jesus said in John 3:6 6That Which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
Now flesh refers to the physical body in contrast to what is spiritual. This becomes a fundamental change in living for God’s kingdom (Spirit) versus a human earthy kingdom (Flesh). Flesh and blood are not able to inherit the kingdom of eternal life with Christ, and the inheritance of God’s kingdom will require a heavenly spiritual body like Christ’s.
In 1 Cor 15:49 it says49 And as we have borne the image of the man of Dust (Which is Adam after he fell into sin, my paraphrase), We shall also bear The image of the heavenly Man.
We will all be changed from the perishable body of Human existence and will be replaced with a raised up glorious body, soul, and spirit that God has designed in us since the beginning. We will resemble Christ in His glorified spiritual body and His character. Hades and death are conquered once and for all. Jesus Christ holds the keys. In Revelation 1:18, 18I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of 1Hades and of Death. The door is unlocked, all we have to do is ask Him into our lives.
Now for the Comfort of Jesus Christ’s Coming we have.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. 15For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are a sleep.16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up Together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord.18Therefore comfort one another with these words.
We will not all fall asleep; implies that believers who are alive will remain alive before the time of the rapture, and when the rapture occurs, we will be joined with the saints after who have been asleep (died) in Jesus Christ at His coming.
Those who "died in Christ" will return with Him. “They” are not in the grave–only “their bodies” are. "Those who sleep in Jesus" is another commonly misunderstood term. When we die, only our bodies die.
Our spirits go to be with the Lord. Our bodies will be spiritual bodies. We need to be ready, for you do not know the time when our Lord Jesus will take all His believers with Him, only God the Father has determined the time. It could be now, tomorrow, we just don’t know.
Jesus Christ conquered the sting of death through His death and resurrection. Now, where is the sting of death and fear of dying? Our hope is in Jesus Christ. The rapture is imminent!! This gives us the ability and hope to be alive in Jesus Christ!
When all is done, we the saints (OT and NT), the church of Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father will be a church alive and eternal with God in Heaven our real home. Listen to that…. Our real home! Finally!! Amen!!
One more thing to grab a hold of is, remember God is not slack in His promises!
In 2 Peter 3:8-9 8But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
We must repent daily, have faith, believe, and stay firm in our final victory that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has provided for us. Our Blessed Hope!