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This Week’s Devotional Topic
HEAVENLY REMINDERS
It is time for a Heavenly Reminder. Our hearts and minds should be set on heaven.
Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
The reason we can be excited about heaven is that God provided a way for us to escape the penalty for our sin which is death and eternal judgement in hell. As a Christian, this world is not our home. By God’s grace, Heaven is our home, our ultimate address.
John 3:16, 17 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Many fear death. Most fear the process of death, not necessarily death itself. Knowledge overcomes fear. For the Christian fear of death can be overcome by the knowledge that God has provided victory, everlasting life through belief, faith in salvation through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus. Jesus Christ conquered death.
Psalms 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
Romans 8:33-39 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The twenty-third Psalm gives us real comfort as we consider approaching death.
Psalms 23:4-6 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Some have referred to the death of a young person with the phrase “their life has been cut short”. From God’s perspective, our life is completed when we leave this earth.
Will you live with Jesus? Knowing that to be absent from this body is to be present with Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Since the reality is that we are not guaranteed the next heartbeat, the next breath. God only knows what our appointed time is.
James 4:13-15 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Luke 12:16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Hebrews 9:24-28 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
One of ways I’ve said goodbye to fellow believers, sharing with them a reminder that “I’ll see you again “Here there or in the air”! Another reality is that there will be no “good byes” in Heaven, only “Hellos”. As the song says, “Heaven is a long hello!”
This week’s Scripture:
Matthew 6:19-21; John 3:16,17; Romans 8:33-39; Psalms 116:15; Psalm 23:4-6; James 4:13-15; Luke 12:16 and Hebrews 9:24-28
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