“Our Daily Bread” http://odb.org
The Daily Devotions of Greg Laurie http://www.harvest.org/devotional
Written by Louis Mize, a good friend @ https://www.facebook.com/louis.mize
“Christ in you, the hope of glory”
But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen ] asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. (NKJV)
1st Thessalonians 4:13
Paul isn’t telling us that we should not have sorrow in the death of a loved one, but that our sorrow should be different from ones who are unbelievers in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see when you pass by the casket of a loved one who has trusted Christ as their Lord, your loved one is not there. You are just seeing the body that housed the real person.
In 2 Corinthians. 5:8, Paul tells us that to be absent from the body is to be present with Lord. The soul of man never dies, it never sleeps. The body does. I have preached many funerals of saved folks, and these people’s family’s sorrow, but in a different way from the families of those who are lost. The reason for this is that they who are lost have no hope of eternal life.
When the church on earth is finally caught up in the air to meet the Lord, God will raise the bodies of the dead in Christ first, then those who are still alive will follow our brothers and sisters up, and so shall we will be with the Lord forevermore. That gives the sons and daughters of God much hope and should affect the way we view the loss of a loved one. Therefore, we should comfort one another with these words, and not torment them.
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