1 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” 2. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” 3. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”…
Yes, death can never be the end. Resurrection and life remain the life and the way to eternal life with God. Is death the opposite of life? Death is the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26); thus, Hades and death shall have their destination in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:13–14). It’s no longer a choice between life and death; it’s now a preference between life with God through Christ Jesus eternally or life in hell forever. Death today is tomorrow’s…
Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Easter comes out the ringing in terms that we all hear if we seek to hear it, that the soul of man is immortal. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have fit testimony that this earthly life is not the end, that death is just something of a turn in the road, that life moves down a continual moving river, and that death is just a little turn in the river, that this earthly…
1. “And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” 2. “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 3. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And…
Yes, Jesus Christ challenges us to take up our cross and follow HIM. HE calls us to the spiritual domain of humility. Paul says we must “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus,” who submitted to God the Father to “death on a cross.” God the Son submitted to the Father from the inception (John 1:1-5, 9-14), knowing HE would eventually die on the cross. Now we are called to submit to our Saviour; this isn’t easy, and it’s for life,…
Richard John Neuhaus said: “By these three days all the world is called to attention. Everything that is and ever was and ever will be, the macro and the micro, the galaxies beyond number and the microbes beyond notice – everything is mysteriously entangled with what happened, with what happens, in these days.… Every human life, conceived from eternity and destined to eternity, here finds its story truly told. In this killing that some call senseless, we are brought to…
1. “So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” 2. “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” 3. “What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has…
The being of Christianity is indeed a community with Christ Jesus brought together by the Cross. Jesus Christ lived amidst HIS adversaries. Toward the end, every one of HIS disciples abandoned HIM. HE was left alone on the Cross. Yes, HE was alone to bring us together. Wrongdoers and charlatans encompassed HIM. For this reason, HE had come to deliver peace to the adversaries of God. So the Christian, as well, has a place not in the separation of a…
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “Whoever enters discipleship enters Jesus’ death, and puts his or her own life into death; this has been so from the beginning. The cross is not the horrible end of a pious, happy life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ.”
1. “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” 2. “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.” 3. “The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.” 4. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that…