Enter His Gates With
Thanksgiving
- Psalm 100:4
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The Lord giveth and the
Lord
hath taken away;
may the name of the Lord
be praised.
- Job 1:21
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Said the caterpillar,
contemplating the coming death
to its way
of life in the cocoon:
"I'm afraid of the change --
I've never been a butterfly before."
Said the butterfly soaring
above:
"The old ground-crawling life
was just the beginning.
THIS is what I was made for!"
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The Resurrection
Body
- 1 Corinthians 15:35-37, 42-57
But someone may ask, "How are the dead
raised? With what kind of body will they
come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it
dies. When you sow, you do not plant the
body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
So it will be with resurrection of the
dead. The body that is sown is
perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in
glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body,
it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also
a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being,"
the last Adam, a life–giving spirit. The
spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the
spiritual. The first man was of the dust
of the earth, the second man from heaven.
As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the
man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the
earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God, nor does the perishable
inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell
you a mystery: We will not all sleep,
but we will all be changed -- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trumpet. For the trumpet will
sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with
the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written
will come true: "Death has been
swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law. But
thanks be to God! He gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
