Victory Through Christ

God Instructs the People of God

God's People Learn from Prosperity:

God is Victorious

1 Corinthians 15:50-57

The Message

 ⁵⁰I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don't in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very "nature" is to die, so how could they "naturally" end up in the Life kingdom?
 ^51-57But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

   Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
   Who got the last word, oh, Death?
   Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

For Reflection
Remember in Christ we receive a wonderful gift.  We are invited to die.  Become dead to the material world.  Become unresponsive to those natural earthy seductions.

We are also invited to be reborn into a transformed person.  A person who leaves his earthly self behind and responds to his God centered self. The leverage of guilt is gone.

Pray
that the Lord will fill you with the Holy Spirit.  Pray that you believe deeply that you have been transformed, reborn daily as a God centered person.  Say thank you for your immortality.