The Various Forms of "Me"

So, today, I have to go to a doctor's appointment, which gives me a tiny sense of dread.  It's just a small kernel, lingering back there in my subconscious.  I'd rather go get a doughnut or a facial, ok?  But, there it is....doctor's appointment. 

Most of us people spend an inordinate amount of time caring for (attending to) our bodies.  (Even if we overindulge them, that is a form of "attention" or "care".)  It is sort of built into us by our Creator God to want to stay alive in this crazy world for as long as possible...for some reason.  Sociologists call that "the survival instinct", I guess.

Our text today is Philippians 3:20-21 (NET) - -

20  But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21  who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

These days when I look into the mirror I see the likeness of somewhat of a stranger.  When you get to be about 21 or so, you feel like you actually look like "yourself", fully "grown".  And then, from that point on, you start to look stranger and stranger, even while feeling like the same "girl" or "boy" you used to be, in some respects.  Believe me, young readers, it's weird.  So, we devote an inordinate amount of time grooming this perishable body, this body which will one day lie on a morgue's or mortician's table, cold and dead.

Another large portion of our day is devoted to training our minds (souls)....with "mindless" (pardon the pun) entertainment, or school work, or job training, or conversation with others, etc.  Training the mind toward godliness is a more noble pursuit, because mind (soul) and spirit are so intertwined.  "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus...." (Philippians 2:5)

And, consequently, because there are only 24 hours in the day, we neglect the deepest, most true part of ourselves, the part which will live forever...somewhere: the spirit.  These days, I am in the phase of caring for my body and soul so that I can continue to nurture my spirit, by submitting it more and more to Jesus Christ.  Despite the challenges of my body aging, this is a very good phase of life in which to be.  In the time I have remaining, I want to use my resources (body and soul) to grow closer to Him and to advance His kingdom here on earth.  As Paul proclaimed in Acts 20:24 - - -

But I do not consider my life worth anything to myself, so that I may finish my task and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God's grace.

The thing about these two verses (Philippians 3:20-21) I love the most is not the part about our bodies being raised from the dead and transformed some day.  When I die, my soul and spirit will go immediately to be with my Lord and Savior (Ecclesiastes 12:7; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23). My body is "immaterial" (Lord, I am just full of puns this morning...); in other words, it will remain "sleeping", decaying in the grave or wherever my descendants put it.  I will slough off this flesh and will never return to it in its earthly form.  My soul and spirit will one day (maybe hundreds of years from now or maybe next week) be reunited with a likeness of my earthly body; but, more importantly, on that great day, my new body will be in the likeness of Jesus' "glorified" body.  He will then unite my soul and spirit with my "glorified, heavenly" body.  No one knows when Jesus will return to earth to do this; only Father God knows that day and hour.  But, on that day, my reunited (NEW! body)-soul-spirit will be my possession for all eternity here in the "new heaven and new earth", described in Revelation 21-22.1

Here's the best part of Philippians 3:21.  Paul declares Jesus' "Godness": that Jesus is definitely God, one of the co-equal parts of the Holy Trinity.  Paul declares Him Savior, yes, but also calls Him "Kyrion" (Greek for "Lord").  Jesus used this same word to refer to God the Father, in the gospel accounts.  It will be God Jesus Himself who raises the bodies of His Bride from the dead on "that glorious day" (see song link below).  As He raises them - - - from cremation urn, from ocean floor, from moldering casket, from the dust of the earth - - - He will transform them with the same power He used to create the world, the same power Father God used to raise His Son from the dead and transform His earthly body into its glorifed, heavenly form.

Paul makes allusion to Jesus as Creator in Colossians 1:15-20, which we will study in a couple of weeks.  John referred to Jesus as "the Logos", the Word, in the beginning of his gospel.  It is indisputable that Jesus Christ is God, and that through Him all things were created, all things "consist", that is, "are held together".  He's "got the whole world in His hands", literally.  (Gives you a new twist on that little children's song, doesn't it?  Now you know it points to Colossians 1 and John 1 and Philippians 3!  :)  )

https://youtu.be/VXp6xcY5IqU

Good morning, Lord Jesus!  Thank you for another day in which to "live and move and have my being" - - - in You.  (Acts 17:28) What incomprehensible power!  That will be a glorious day, but not nearly so glorious as that day in which my spirit unites with You fully, for the first time, in Heaven.  I can only begin to imagine... May I worship You today, in Spirit and in truth.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Source:

1
http://www.gotquestions.org/what-happens-death.html 

Fly, Firefly, Fly!

Good morning,

Right in the middle of "life" this week, one of my best high school friends "moved on up".  The last time I saw her was about five years ago.  Although we were close in high school we lost touch after graduation, except for infrequent high school reunions.  She went on to serve God faithfully for more than 40 years, as a wife, mother, school teacher.  Her testimony was to God's grace in her life.

What I remember most about her was her calm and gentle spirit.  She was naturally quiet and reserved.  While we were in high school, she lost her mother to sudden illness.  Her mother had been a beautiful, precious, vivacious soul.  We all grieved over this loss.  But, her mother would have been proud of the godly life my friend lived.

It is my loss that we did not remain close over these 40 years.  I guess that such parting-of-the-ways is a result of going out to fulfill one's calling.  However, there is a "tie that binds", as the song goes ... the Holy Spirit of God who lived in her and also in me. Later today, I will be traveling with my best childhood friend to pay my respects and to rejoice with her loved ones. We are secure in the knowledge of where her soul now resides.

I heard a conversation yesterday between someone I dearly love and a second person I greatly respect. They agreed together that neither one of them "is religious".  With great difficulty, I kept my mouth shut, because it was "neither the time nor the place", if you know what I mean.  Do you see, though, that they most certainly ARE religious?  They are merely worshipping something or someone else other than the One who created them.

The god of this world, Satan, has blinded so many to the Truth.

Even if you read this and scoff at that statement, let me ask you this.  What if you are right and I am wrong?  Well, I will have lived a life of peace and joy, even in the middle of various trials along the way, and when I die....nothing.  I will have lost nothing except, you may argue, a few years of temporary, earthly pleasures.  But, what if you are the one who is mistaken...about the meaning and purpose of life, about there being an eternity of either Heaven or Hell?  Are you really willing to gamble your eternal soul, based on what someone else has told you, without doing a thorough investigation of the matter?

C.S. Lewis was a tremendously intelligent man, a professor of English at Oxford University, London. He reached that point of saying, "I've got to check this Jesus stuff out, to see if it is true."  He wrote a book about his journey of discovery.  It is entitled, Mere Christianity.  Here is some of what he wrote:
“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” 

In so many ways, we are like a lightning bug trapped in a jar.  Did you ever do that, as a kid?  Trap a firefly (we call them "lightning bugs" here in the South) in a jar, with holes in the lid?  The bug knows it does not belong in the jar.  There is something within its very DNA that cries out to that fact.  It is in a hostile environment.  Its entire existence is spent trying to get to that world where it belongs, and it won't find any true satisfaction until it does.

We are not mere flesh and blood and bone.  One of the unbelievers I mentioned above said yesterday, "We really have very little understanding of how the human brain works.  It is a miracle."  Yeah.  A divinely created miracle.
There is a soul within each of our bodies, and that soul is the "real us", and it will live somewhere forever. 

As a Christ-follower, I know where my eternal home will be.  I know this, beyond all doubt.   It's not because I'm "good".  It is because Jesus Christ was and is and ever will be perfect.  As His child, His righteousness has been conferred to me, forever.
 Again, C.S. Lewis - - 
“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” 
That taste of Heaven, like the light in the firefly is, thanks to Jesus, already inside me.  The Holy Spirit cries out, "Daddy! Father!" to God. 

So my friend, who is newly arrived to Heaven, got there the same "one and only way" I will.  There IS but one way there, and His name is Jesus.  Don't be deceived.  There is a place.  She is there with others I have known here and whom I'll see again, when it comes my turn to "fly, firefly, fly!"

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace.

Acts 20:24

7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; 8in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r2Hn8fBYbA

Father, I thank you for the privilege of being Your child.  Thank you for possessing me and transforming me by fusing my spirit with Yours forever.  Being in this present world, I have Your downpayment of eternity within me.  That light of life, Your Spirit, will never be extinguished.  And, when it is my time to "move on up", to "fly away", Your Spirit will take me to my forever home.  I thank You and praise You, because You have done this marvelous thing...something I could never achieve or do.  To You is due all the honor and glory and eternal praise.  In Jesus' name, amen.


Source:
1  https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/801500-mere-christianity