The Hope for Resurrection
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 10981 |
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April 11, 2010 |
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 "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?'" (John 11:25-26)
Easter is the happiest day to those who believe in God and Jesus Christ. Jesus was crucified even though He had no sin at all. He redeemed all mankind from their sins so that anyone who believes in Him can reach salvation. He broke the power of death and became the firstfruits of resurrection so that those believers who have the assurance of salvation live with the hope for resurrection. Then, what kind of life shall we live if we have the hope for the resurrection?
First, we cast off evil from our heart and overcome evil with goodness.
When He became the Lord of resurrection, Jesus also had only goodness (1 Peter 2:23). Judas Iscariot heard many words and witnessed the power of God firsthand as a disciple. But because he didn't cast off his evil, he finally sold Jesus out. The enemy devil and Satan knew his heart was filled with evil such as arrogance and wrongful desires and incited the evil in his heart. Because Jesus knew this wretched spiritual situation of Judas, He had pity on him.
It was not that Jesus' heart was hurt or He had hardship because another person was acting in evil. He had pain in heart because another person was committing sins and was going the way of destruction because of the evil in his heart. He had pity on those people who were stained with evil in the heart and acted in that evil.
Jesus prayed for those who were crucifying Him, saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). Because Jesus did not have any kind of evil in heart at all, He did not show any evil against any evil challenges but only goodness. As He did not commit any sins, He did not have to be tied to the curse of the law that dictates "the wages of sin is death," and resurrected.
To the extent that we have evil in our heart, we have less strength to overcome evil with goodness. If our feelings are hurt and hate the other who is giving us hard time, we cannot overcome evil with goodness. We will only fall a prey to the devil. Therefore, if we have agitation of the ill-feelings, we at least have to suppress it. Also, by praying fervently, we have to pull out the evil in our heart that agitated the ill-feelings. Then, when we face the same kind of situation, we won't have ill-feelings but overcome it with goodness.
Secondly, we abound in spiritual love.
An exceedingly great love is contained in the heart of Jesus. Since He was filled with the love for the Father God, He humbled Himself according to God's will and obeyed even unto death. Also, He had great love for the souls and took the punishment of death on behalf of sinners. In the same way, to the extent that we show our spiritual love in deeds and truth, we can participate in greater glory of resurrection. To do this, we have to love God and the Lord truly. To attend church every Sunday, to give many offerings like tithes and thanks offerings, to evangelize many people, and the like are the proofs of the love for the Lord, but the greatest proof of the true love for Him is to live by His Word.
The more we live by God's Word, the more hope of resurrection we will have. The more hope of resurrection we have, the less lingering attachment we will have for the things of this world. We gain eternal and imperishable things, and don't have any reason to have such feelings for perishing, fleshly things. If we accomplish spiritual love with the hope of resurrection, we will live a life of devotion. We won't try to be served but instead try to serve others first. We will be full of this spiritual love and softly embrace all the newcomers. With your warm hearts, they will not feel any kind of difference or barrier in their hearts.
Thirdly and lastly, we will have unending joy and thanks on their lips.
Just as the resurrection of our Lord is true and real, we will have spiritual bodies at the time of resurrection and live in eternal heavenly kingdom. Spiritual bodies have no disabilities, pains, or tiredness. Also, the heavenly kingdom in which we will live forever has roads that are pure gold. It is a place decorated with many kinds of jewels.
If you truly believe that you will be an owner of this heavenly kingdom, you can rejoice and give thanks in all things. Suppose you know that tomorrow you will have billions of dollars. Your debtors called you and gave you a hard time insisting that you pay the money back. You would not be sad because you will have billions of dollars tomorrow. But we may lose joy and thanks easily if we don't have that much heavenly kingdom in our heart. When we want something of this world, but we cannot get it, we have complaints in our hearts.
Those who are really filled with hope of resurrection will not feel troubled by the difficulties of the realities of this life. They rejoice with faith and give thanks with faith. God the Father sees this faith and also changes the reality into a kind of reality which is really good and for which we can give thanks. The problems are solved and we will receive blessings.
May you lead a happy Christian life in the hope for heaven and dwell in the brightest position in the eternal kingdom of Heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray!
For additional information or to read the message's text in its entirety, please visit Manmin Central Church on the web at (www. manmin. org), select the "English" menu, and click on "Words of Life."
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