A
Glorious Prospect
By
Arthur J Licursi
Most genuine believers
know by "the signs of the
times" and an inward sense that we are in "the
last days" and the end of the age is drawing near.
We can rejoice even in
these troubled days because we, those of us who have trusted
in Christ for our salvation, have a glorious eternal
prospect.
For the present, as
believers, while waiting to one day go to be with Him, "we
have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of His grace" (Eph. 1:7).
In infinite love God has made us to be "accepted
in the Beloved (Christ)" (Eph. 1:6)
and has pronounced us "complete
in Him (Christ)"
(Col. 2:10).
·
Our present secure
position is now a blessed and exalted one, for God
has made us to "sit
(resting) together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6)
and has "blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph.
1:3).
We
also have Christ own very life within
us (
Col
1:27), to live His life through us as He guides us from within.
We are not left to navigate the trials of this earthly life by ourselves.
·
Then, referring
to the Christian's death, Philippians 1:23 tells us
that "to
depart, and to be with Christ… is far better";
far better, not only than earth's sorrows and troubles, but far better
even than earth's dearest treasures and joys.
But even this is not
all, for the time will come when the members of the Church, when "the
Body of Christ" is completed, the Lord Himself will come to receive all of the members
of "His body," the living and dead, to Himself at what is
called the "Rapture," or the "catching away" (You
can read of this in 1Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Then
also, referring to the resurrection of the
deceased believer's body, Paul, in 1Cor 15,
declares the following.
"it
(our physical body) is to be raised in incorruptibility" (Ver. 42),
"it
is raised in glory" (Ver. 43),
"it
is raised in power" (Ver. 43),
"it
is raised a spiritual body" (Ver. 44),
"as
we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly" (Ver. 49).
·
And for to those believers who will be alive at
His coming at the time of the "Rapture," Paul
says: "We
shall all be changed" (Ver. 51).
Thus we "...
we are citizens of the state (commonwealth, homeland) which is in heaven,
and from it also we earnestly and
patiently await [the coming of] the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah)
[as] Savior, 21 Who
will transform and fashion anew the body of our humiliation to conform to
and be like the body of His (resurrected) glory and majesty, by
exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to
Himself." Philippians 3:20-21 (AMP)
Paul also wrote "FOR
WE KNOW that if the tent (physical body) which is our earthly home is
destroyed (dissolved), we have from God a building, a house not made with
hands (a spirit-body, see v44 above), ETERNAL in the heavens."
(2 Corinthians 5:1 (AMP)
