AFTERTHOUGHTS: MATTHEW 25
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-pty-pty_weather&hsimp=yhs-pty_weather&hspart=pty&p=the+elusive+butterfly#id=4&vid=775e3e05e91dcdeb8105b0858b0b1423&action=view
We do that, don't we? We chase after love. All those pop songs about finding the right girl, the right boy, the ONE. And we end up chasing love for love's sakes and it becomes an idol, the wish to satisfy the space in ourselves. And love ends up being the end in itself. God IS love but He transcends the thing we define it as in those we love in our human, selfish emotions. We chase a love that feeds our egos. And we lock onto gifts of love to feed our egos, by running down aisles, by using them to gain cars and airplanes. We "hold out for a hero" when the hero is eternally at our shoulders calling us home. If we are lucky, we pursue the butterfly until it catches us.
We touched on some of this post's thoughts briefly before, but I want to spend some time now dwelling on some aspects of Jesus' prophecies about the saved and still lost and about the ones who will be lost at the beginning of the Millennium. About where the spiritual trail they leave leads.
1) It's not about you or me, to edit Rick Warren just a bit. To be fair, we have harped on that but we arrived in these last few posts at the place that defines the reason we need so desperately to understand that Purpose Driven opening sentence.
The people in the last verses we studied ALL ended up lost to God. I want you to realize the depth of that statement. The one who goes back to living like the world ends up like the one who had the gift and didn't use it. The one who had low oil, who had not fed the Spirit, ended up like the one who had totally returned to the world. In each case, they are lost to God.
God wants every one of us. He doesn't come with a requirement of white skin or blond hair or green eyes any more than He requires afros or suits and ties or traditional hymn music. He wants us just as we are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsD2urNjIWQ
2) But once we arrive, He wants us to understand we BELONG TO HIM. He loves us beyond time and space, in that place of safety, that Eden we lost and want again, that we seek beyond everything. But we have to realize that love is all engulfing and we have to yield to it. It is the Holy Spirit of God indwelling us, directing us but we are to listen and test it because there are other spirits as well that can seduce us in disguise, a spirit of antichrist, the demonic spirit that humanity's still fallen nature is vulnerable to. You see, all the those acts, keeping the old ways, not nurturing the Spirit, not using the gifts, quench the Spirit.\
3) From My Utmost For His Highest
By Oswald Chambers
Do not quench the Spirit. —1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7).
Lu 9:62 But Jesus said, No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is good enough for the kingdom of God.
(BBE)
1Jo 1:6 If we say we are joined to him, and are walking still in the dark, our words are false and our acts are untrue:
7 But if we are walking in the light, as he is in the light, we are all united with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son makes us clean from all sin.
(BBE)
(Please notice the conditionality of the cleansing blood and relate it to the warnings above. W)
If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.
And the lost, the lost:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWHCaMEkPQA
4) Now let me give you a bit of a flash forward. This blog is after all about the Final Flesh and this tells us the story of that final flesh if we are listening.
Jesus came back in a spiritual body. Paul send the most time explaining it.
1Co 15:35 But someone will say, How do the dead come back? and with what sort of body do they come?
36 Foolish man, it is necessary for the seed which you put into the earth to undergo death in order that it may come to life again:
37 And when you put it into the earth, you do not put in the body which it will be, but only the seed, of grain or some other sort of plant;
38 But God gives it a body, as it is pleasing to him, and to every seed its special body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, and another of fishes.
40 And there are bodies of heaven and bodies of earth, but the glory of the one is different from that of the other.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for the glory of one star is different from that of another.
42 So is it with the coming back from the dead. It is planted in death; it comes again in life:
43 It is planted in shame; it comes again in glory: feeble when it is planted, it comes again in power:
44 It is planted a natural body; it comes again as a body of the spirit. If there is a natural body, there is equally a body of the spirit.
45 And so it is said, The first man Adam was a living soul. The last Adam is a life-giving spirit.
46 But that which is natural comes before that which is of the spirit.
47 The first man is from the earth, and of the earth: the second man is from heaven.
48 Those who are of the earth are like the man who was from the earth: and those who are of heaven are like the one from heaven.
49 And in the same way as we have taken on us the image of the man from the earth, so we will take on us the image of the one from heaven.
50 Now I say this, my brothers, that it is not possible for flesh and blood to have a part in the kingdom of God; and death may not have a part in life.
51 See, I am giving you the revelation of a secret: we will not all come to the sleep of death, but we will all be changed.
52 In a second, in the shutting of an eye, at the sound of the last horn: for at that sound the dead will come again, free for ever from the power of death, and we will be changed.
53 For this body which comes to destruction will be made free from the power of death, and the man who is under the power of death will put on eternal life.
54 But when this has taken place, then that which was said in the Writings will come true, Death is overcome by life.
55 O death, where is your power? O death, where are your pains?
56 The pain of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law:
57 But praise be to God who gives us strength to overcome through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 For this cause, my dear brothers, be strong in purpose and unmoved, ever giving yourselves to the work of the Lord, because you are certain that your work is not without effect in the Lord.
(BBE)
Little I can add to the Apostle. I got font-carried away. It makes my words seem small under it and that's best. Can you imagine the crown Paul has to lay at Jesus feet! He ran the race like the tortoise, persistent, unstoppable and I look back and see myself lolling on the sidelines like the hare. We have jets to his wooden boats and cars to his feet and internet to his letters. And he's surpassed us all because he was single-minded and followed the Spirit. But one commentator does give me the lead-in for one of my conclusions:
https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/what-is-a-spiritual-body-according-to-the-bible/
The Perfect Purpose for our New Spiritual Body?
In heaven, we will have a perfect body, a pure heart and mind, and all of eternity. What will we do? How will we spend the time we have been granted? We will worship the One who is worthy of all worship. We will be able to worship God as He intended for us to worship Him. No longer hindered by the limitations of the world, we can praise our God as we have never fully been able to praise Him. We can enjoy the full fellowship with Him that we longed to have during our earthly existence.
5) But see something else related to Paul's words. Recall our brief discussion of Mary and how she likely had all the genetic make-up of humanity, making her, essentially a new Eve. And our conclusion that Jesus would have had all the genetics of every person born and to be born in him, even as Adam. So the availability of the Spirit would surely be universal physically as well as spiritually. There will be a genetic union of humanity in the old flesh. But we must be reborn, indwelt with the Spirit and then filled with it when Jesus comes to take us. And we then get a Spiritual body, remade into a new form.
But take that the step further. The Spirit is the Spiritual "Mary" who births us. We are to be with God forever, united with Him in service. We are to be like Jesus. We can only do that if his Spirit still dwells within us. So the new body is united with the Spirit eternally. It is a spiritual body and the only way we can be with him eternally and always do as He wants, by being connection with Him. And never rebelling. We will be the perfect servants, always in Spiritual contact with the Creator. To be like Jesus:
Joh 8:28 So Jesus said, When the Son of man has been lifted up by you, then it will be clear to you who I am, and that I do nothing of myself, but say as the Father gave me teaching.
29 He who sent me is with me; he has not gone from me, because at all times I do the things which are pleasing to him.
(BBE)
And how that fact must rankle Satan.
Do you begin to understand why the battle in Heaven appears in the middle the Tribulation in Revelation?
Re 12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going out to the fight with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels made war,
8 And they were overcome, and there was no more place for them in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was forced down, the old snake, who is named the Evil One and Satan, by whom all the earth is turned from the right way; he was forced down to the earth, and his angels were forced down with him.
10 And a great voice in heaven came to my ears, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: because he who says evil against our brothers before our God day and night is forced down.
11 And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their witness; and loving not their lives they freely gave themselves up to death.
12 Be glad then, O heavens, and you who are in them. But there is trouble for the earth and the sea: because the Evil One has come down to you, being very angry, having the knowledge that he has but a short time.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was forced down to the earth, he made cruel attacks on the woman who gave birth to the male child.
14 And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, so that she might go in flight into the waste land, to her place, where she is given food for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the snake.
15 And the snake sent out of his mouth after the woman a river of water, so that she might be taken away by the stream.
16 And the earth gave help to the woman, and with open mouth took up the river which the dragon sent out of his mouth.
17 And the dragon was angry with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her seed, who keep the orders of God, and the witness of Jesus:
(BBE)
God's choice to throw out Satan becomes evidence of a reason for us and we become evident as the reason for Satan falling
https://www.gotquestions.org/war-in-heaven.html
Question: "Is the war in heaven in Revelation 12 describing Satan's original fall or an end times angelic battle?"
Answer: The last great angelic battle and Satan’s ultimate expulsion from heaven are described in Revelation 12:7–12. In this passage, John sees a great war between Michael and the angels of God and the dragon (Satan) and his fallen angels or demons that will take place in the end times. Satan, in his great pride and delusion that he can be like God, will lead a final rebellion against God. It will be a cosmic mismatch. Thus, the dragon and his demons will lose the battle and be thrown out of heaven forever.
A common misconception is that Satan and his demons were locked away in hell after the fall of Satan. It is clear from many Bible passages that Satan was not barred from heaven or the earth after his first rebellion, which predated the creation. In Job 1:1—2:8, he appears before God to accuse Job of ulterior motives in his worship of God. In Zechariah 3, he again appears before God to accuse Joshua, the high priest. Indeed, the name Satan means “accuser.” In Genesis, he visited the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve. He tempted Jesus in the wilderness before Jesus began His ministry, an incident recorded in Matthew 4:1–11. The question arises that, if Satan had already rebelled and been cast from heaven before the world was created, why is he free to be in heaven and on earth?
In 2 Corinthians 12:2–3, the apostle Paul provides a major revelation that there are three “heavens.” In this passage, he seemingly talks about himself being taken up to the “third heaven” where God the Father and Jesus dwell. The second heaven is the universe or outer space, and the first is our atmosphere or air. The Bible indicates that Satan and some of his demons are allowed to move in this space (Ephesians 2:1–2; 6:12).
In this age, Satan and his highest ranking angels can still oppose the work of God and hinder the angels of God (Daniel 10:10–14) within the boundaries of the middle or second heaven. The battle recorded in Revelation 12 removes Satan and his minions from this realm.
When Satan is expelled from the middle heaven, there will be great rejoicing in heaven, since the age-old accuser will be forever banned from his mission of accusation and slander against the elect. Satan’s power and freedom will be seriously curtailed. However, the inhabitants of the earth will suffer terribly after this event, because Satan will be enraged. He will also be aware that he only has three and a half more years until he is bound and cast into the bottomless pit. This will usher in a period of intensified suffering on earth (the Great Tribulation) during which the Antichrist violates his peace treaty with Israel, desecrates their temple, declares himself as god, and begins to systematically murder all those who refuse to worship him.
We seem to have been the thing that made Satan reveal his rebelliousness to God. It seems we were the last straw. God created something different from heaven perhaps for the first time in Satan's experience and Satan saw God show favor to man and that was IT. The other fallen angels got the same notion and followed the lead of the Archangel.
Think of it. the arrogance. Why I never saw such a thing!
Except, of course, I have. One coworker a while ago said that the leader of another division of factorhy production was "not my boss". We both work to produce goods for his line to finish and ship, We are, essentially, both his suppliers. So, yes, since he knows what he needs to have produced and shipped at that time, we do in fact work for him in that moment.
I have had people tell me how to do my job and ignored them. When my boss tells me, I listen. When some of my bosses tell me, I chafe at the bit, but I do it, unwillingly. I judge one boss placed over me by God to be better than another boss placed over me by God. And I see it time and again from everyone I work with. I've suggested to others to praise for Trump and they tell me: "Not THAT guy." I tend to forget it myself.
Arrogance. ARROGANCE.
Satan thought he knew better than God and we all ended up catching the bug.
It's arrogant to think we can live as we please if we have given our lives to God. It's arrogant to think we can keep our gift hidden when we are told to share. It is arrogant to have priorities other than nurturing the life of the Spirit in us...
...BECAUSE that it the life we have for eternity. Perfectly connected with God.
The life Satan and the other angels all saw coming, coming to puny powerless twits, They understood God's ways. He let himself be born in helplessness and powerlessness yet rise to ultimate importance in a small puny country so small at the Earth must seem from an eternal viewpoint. To say we would become LIKE him.
Yet we end up singing songs as if we were Him speaking. We end up praying and talking to Satan in our prayers, telling him what to do because we think we ARE Jesus. We resist His word by not making disciples, by not witnessing. We think the other guy is less saved than us for worshiping on the "wrong day." We are so arrogant in our behavior that we quench the POWER of the Spirit and THEN the Spirit.
We give our accuser all the ammunition to wound Jesus as He stands witness next to God to cover our sins. We are actually arrogant enough to think that's all He's there for. We don't admit it to ourselves, but our (we can read "I, me, and My" here any time.) behavior speaks for itself.
Though talking of unsaved scientists, e.g., Carl Sagan who we've mentioned earlier, Kurt Bruner, in Inlings of God, discusses how a scientist like Sagan who said of Christianity in a reply letter to writer Bob Garner: "The evidence is not yet in." could be untouched by the wonders they observe. Bruner's concluded that the difference between them and scientists like Hugh Ross who wrote the book, "The Thumbprint of God" referring to how Ross sees God's work in the universe, that difference was a "tether of humility."
"As we explore the wonders of human discovery and innovation, we need that same tether...human invention is nothing more than entering into a creative process launched long before any of us appeared on stage (I hear God asking Job where he was when God was creating the universe. W)...Computer programmers gave Stephen Hawking the ability to speak. Divine creativity made the brain that gave him something to say."
(Aside: Hawking also died recently.)
Let me widen the scope of the statement. We all need "the tether of humility" to actually reach God. We have to admit his existence to even realize we need to come to him and we need to repent of our old ways to join Him in the Spirit. All of which takes humility, the realization that it isn't about US.
We were created to join him in the Spirit and to nurture now the relationship for eternity. For eternity.
We face our mortality here with so much fear if there is no Him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThVjiEuDaUs
And the only thing to say is, "You've BEEN told, over and over."
And, in our fear, we dream of it this way so often:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9BSsIX2j7M
That's our arrogance. "We won't get old. " "We'll never die."
Our reality:
42 So is it with the coming back from the dead. It is planted in death; it comes again in life:
43 It is planted in shame; it comes again in glory: feeble when it is planted, it comes again in power:
44 It is planted a natural body; it comes again as a body of the spirit. If there is a natural body, there is equally a body of the spirit.
And there's another song called "Everywhere I Go". (Did you ever notice we capitalize the I the same way we do the G in God? Smile.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm43IfpOLCs
And the open secret: the Spirit will direct us forever so long as we let it here, so long as we accept this training period, so long as we learn to hear the voice and follow the lead, the lead in the Bible, the lead for our lives. Let Him fill us here. We'll die but we will never, after that, grow old.
See it this way: we are networked into the God computer. We are tethered by wireless humility. And the network can't be hacked or broken. We will worship Him forever, but we need to realize singing doesn't comprise all of worship. Michael throwing Satan out of heaven is as much an act of worship as singing God's praise. Our lives are the worship. If I were a good singer I might jump on the song thing, but I always feel there is so much more than standing in a pew and ringing out. We are there forever to DO as we are here to "GO into all the world". And to thank Him for the opportunity to serve. To be with Him always in the Spirit, always in contact with him and the rest of the Body.
We will have what Satan envies most of all. envies so much he wants us fallen, that he can't wait to accuse us every second of every day for so long as he can. Envies not that we are God, not that we are like God or empowered in any way like Him, though Satan does envy power. Envies not that we "share" the throne in being a part of Him. He envies that we share God, something God did not create him to do. He envies the relationship and so hates us for it. Hates God for giving it to someone else. All the rest emanates from that: we have something he can never have and anyone lost to God is a kind of victory. Anyone our arrogance and their arrogance loses is the greatest loss. All the wars through the ages were to kill the lost and kill the ones who might get them saved, get them into "the body of Christ" guided by a marriage commitment and sealed in the Spirit for eternity.
And with that we return to the battles and then the judgements, Just keep in mind what it is all about. Focus on the end and understand we have a universe of wonder to give us only a taste of what waits beyond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKpy15xBW4w
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-pty-pty_weather&hsimp=yhs-pty_weather&hspart=pty&p=the+elusive+butterfly#id=4&vid=775e3e05e91dcdeb8105b0858b0b1423&action=view
We do that, don't we? We chase after love. All those pop songs about finding the right girl, the right boy, the ONE. And we end up chasing love for love's sakes and it becomes an idol, the wish to satisfy the space in ourselves. And love ends up being the end in itself. God IS love but He transcends the thing we define it as in those we love in our human, selfish emotions. We chase a love that feeds our egos. And we lock onto gifts of love to feed our egos, by running down aisles, by using them to gain cars and airplanes. We "hold out for a hero" when the hero is eternally at our shoulders calling us home. If we are lucky, we pursue the butterfly until it catches us.
We touched on some of this post's thoughts briefly before, but I want to spend some time now dwelling on some aspects of Jesus' prophecies about the saved and still lost and about the ones who will be lost at the beginning of the Millennium. About where the spiritual trail they leave leads.
1) It's not about you or me, to edit Rick Warren just a bit. To be fair, we have harped on that but we arrived in these last few posts at the place that defines the reason we need so desperately to understand that Purpose Driven opening sentence.
The people in the last verses we studied ALL ended up lost to God. I want you to realize the depth of that statement. The one who goes back to living like the world ends up like the one who had the gift and didn't use it. The one who had low oil, who had not fed the Spirit, ended up like the one who had totally returned to the world. In each case, they are lost to God.
God wants every one of us. He doesn't come with a requirement of white skin or blond hair or green eyes any more than He requires afros or suits and ties or traditional hymn music. He wants us just as we are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsD2urNjIWQ
2) But once we arrive, He wants us to understand we BELONG TO HIM. He loves us beyond time and space, in that place of safety, that Eden we lost and want again, that we seek beyond everything. But we have to realize that love is all engulfing and we have to yield to it. It is the Holy Spirit of God indwelling us, directing us but we are to listen and test it because there are other spirits as well that can seduce us in disguise, a spirit of antichrist, the demonic spirit that humanity's still fallen nature is vulnerable to. You see, all the those acts, keeping the old ways, not nurturing the Spirit, not using the gifts, quench the Spirit.\
3) From My Utmost For His Highest
By Oswald Chambers
Do not quench the Spirit. —1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7).
Lu 9:62 But Jesus said, No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is good enough for the kingdom of God.
(BBE)
1Jo 1:6 If we say we are joined to him, and are walking still in the dark, our words are false and our acts are untrue:
7 But if we are walking in the light, as he is in the light, we are all united with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son makes us clean from all sin.
(BBE)
(Please notice the conditionality of the cleansing blood and relate it to the warnings above. W)
If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.
And the lost, the lost:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWHCaMEkPQA
4) Now let me give you a bit of a flash forward. This blog is after all about the Final Flesh and this tells us the story of that final flesh if we are listening.
Jesus came back in a spiritual body. Paul send the most time explaining it.
1Co 15:35 But someone will say, How do the dead come back? and with what sort of body do they come?
36 Foolish man, it is necessary for the seed which you put into the earth to undergo death in order that it may come to life again:
37 And when you put it into the earth, you do not put in the body which it will be, but only the seed, of grain or some other sort of plant;
38 But God gives it a body, as it is pleasing to him, and to every seed its special body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, and another of fishes.
40 And there are bodies of heaven and bodies of earth, but the glory of the one is different from that of the other.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for the glory of one star is different from that of another.
42 So is it with the coming back from the dead. It is planted in death; it comes again in life:
43 It is planted in shame; it comes again in glory: feeble when it is planted, it comes again in power:
44 It is planted a natural body; it comes again as a body of the spirit. If there is a natural body, there is equally a body of the spirit.
45 And so it is said, The first man Adam was a living soul. The last Adam is a life-giving spirit.
46 But that which is natural comes before that which is of the spirit.
47 The first man is from the earth, and of the earth: the second man is from heaven.
48 Those who are of the earth are like the man who was from the earth: and those who are of heaven are like the one from heaven.
49 And in the same way as we have taken on us the image of the man from the earth, so we will take on us the image of the one from heaven.
50 Now I say this, my brothers, that it is not possible for flesh and blood to have a part in the kingdom of God; and death may not have a part in life.
51 See, I am giving you the revelation of a secret: we will not all come to the sleep of death, but we will all be changed.
52 In a second, in the shutting of an eye, at the sound of the last horn: for at that sound the dead will come again, free for ever from the power of death, and we will be changed.
53 For this body which comes to destruction will be made free from the power of death, and the man who is under the power of death will put on eternal life.
54 But when this has taken place, then that which was said in the Writings will come true, Death is overcome by life.
55 O death, where is your power? O death, where are your pains?
56 The pain of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law:
57 But praise be to God who gives us strength to overcome through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 For this cause, my dear brothers, be strong in purpose and unmoved, ever giving yourselves to the work of the Lord, because you are certain that your work is not without effect in the Lord.
(BBE)
Little I can add to the Apostle. I got font-carried away. It makes my words seem small under it and that's best. Can you imagine the crown Paul has to lay at Jesus feet! He ran the race like the tortoise, persistent, unstoppable and I look back and see myself lolling on the sidelines like the hare. We have jets to his wooden boats and cars to his feet and internet to his letters. And he's surpassed us all because he was single-minded and followed the Spirit. But one commentator does give me the lead-in for one of my conclusions:
https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/what-is-a-spiritual-body-according-to-the-bible/
The Perfect Purpose for our New Spiritual Body?
In heaven, we will have a perfect body, a pure heart and mind, and all of eternity. What will we do? How will we spend the time we have been granted? We will worship the One who is worthy of all worship. We will be able to worship God as He intended for us to worship Him. No longer hindered by the limitations of the world, we can praise our God as we have never fully been able to praise Him. We can enjoy the full fellowship with Him that we longed to have during our earthly existence.
5) But see something else related to Paul's words. Recall our brief discussion of Mary and how she likely had all the genetic make-up of humanity, making her, essentially a new Eve. And our conclusion that Jesus would have had all the genetics of every person born and to be born in him, even as Adam. So the availability of the Spirit would surely be universal physically as well as spiritually. There will be a genetic union of humanity in the old flesh. But we must be reborn, indwelt with the Spirit and then filled with it when Jesus comes to take us. And we then get a Spiritual body, remade into a new form.
But take that the step further. The Spirit is the Spiritual "Mary" who births us. We are to be with God forever, united with Him in service. We are to be like Jesus. We can only do that if his Spirit still dwells within us. So the new body is united with the Spirit eternally. It is a spiritual body and the only way we can be with him eternally and always do as He wants, by being connection with Him. And never rebelling. We will be the perfect servants, always in Spiritual contact with the Creator. To be like Jesus:
Joh 8:28 So Jesus said, When the Son of man has been lifted up by you, then it will be clear to you who I am, and that I do nothing of myself, but say as the Father gave me teaching.
29 He who sent me is with me; he has not gone from me, because at all times I do the things which are pleasing to him.
(BBE)
And how that fact must rankle Satan.
Do you begin to understand why the battle in Heaven appears in the middle the Tribulation in Revelation?
Re 12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going out to the fight with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels made war,
8 And they were overcome, and there was no more place for them in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was forced down, the old snake, who is named the Evil One and Satan, by whom all the earth is turned from the right way; he was forced down to the earth, and his angels were forced down with him.
10 And a great voice in heaven came to my ears, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: because he who says evil against our brothers before our God day and night is forced down.
11 And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their witness; and loving not their lives they freely gave themselves up to death.
12 Be glad then, O heavens, and you who are in them. But there is trouble for the earth and the sea: because the Evil One has come down to you, being very angry, having the knowledge that he has but a short time.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was forced down to the earth, he made cruel attacks on the woman who gave birth to the male child.
14 And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, so that she might go in flight into the waste land, to her place, where she is given food for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the snake.
15 And the snake sent out of his mouth after the woman a river of water, so that she might be taken away by the stream.
16 And the earth gave help to the woman, and with open mouth took up the river which the dragon sent out of his mouth.
17 And the dragon was angry with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her seed, who keep the orders of God, and the witness of Jesus:
(BBE)
God's choice to throw out Satan becomes evidence of a reason for us and we become evident as the reason for Satan falling
https://www.gotquestions.org/war-in-heaven.html
Question: "Is the war in heaven in Revelation 12 describing Satan's original fall or an end times angelic battle?"
Answer: The last great angelic battle and Satan’s ultimate expulsion from heaven are described in Revelation 12:7–12. In this passage, John sees a great war between Michael and the angels of God and the dragon (Satan) and his fallen angels or demons that will take place in the end times. Satan, in his great pride and delusion that he can be like God, will lead a final rebellion against God. It will be a cosmic mismatch. Thus, the dragon and his demons will lose the battle and be thrown out of heaven forever.
A common misconception is that Satan and his demons were locked away in hell after the fall of Satan. It is clear from many Bible passages that Satan was not barred from heaven or the earth after his first rebellion, which predated the creation. In Job 1:1—2:8, he appears before God to accuse Job of ulterior motives in his worship of God. In Zechariah 3, he again appears before God to accuse Joshua, the high priest. Indeed, the name Satan means “accuser.” In Genesis, he visited the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve. He tempted Jesus in the wilderness before Jesus began His ministry, an incident recorded in Matthew 4:1–11. The question arises that, if Satan had already rebelled and been cast from heaven before the world was created, why is he free to be in heaven and on earth?
In 2 Corinthians 12:2–3, the apostle Paul provides a major revelation that there are three “heavens.” In this passage, he seemingly talks about himself being taken up to the “third heaven” where God the Father and Jesus dwell. The second heaven is the universe or outer space, and the first is our atmosphere or air. The Bible indicates that Satan and some of his demons are allowed to move in this space (Ephesians 2:1–2; 6:12).
In this age, Satan and his highest ranking angels can still oppose the work of God and hinder the angels of God (Daniel 10:10–14) within the boundaries of the middle or second heaven. The battle recorded in Revelation 12 removes Satan and his minions from this realm.
When Satan is expelled from the middle heaven, there will be great rejoicing in heaven, since the age-old accuser will be forever banned from his mission of accusation and slander against the elect. Satan’s power and freedom will be seriously curtailed. However, the inhabitants of the earth will suffer terribly after this event, because Satan will be enraged. He will also be aware that he only has three and a half more years until he is bound and cast into the bottomless pit. This will usher in a period of intensified suffering on earth (the Great Tribulation) during which the Antichrist violates his peace treaty with Israel, desecrates their temple, declares himself as god, and begins to systematically murder all those who refuse to worship him.
We seem to have been the thing that made Satan reveal his rebelliousness to God. It seems we were the last straw. God created something different from heaven perhaps for the first time in Satan's experience and Satan saw God show favor to man and that was IT. The other fallen angels got the same notion and followed the lead of the Archangel.
Think of it. the arrogance. Why I never saw such a thing!
Except, of course, I have. One coworker a while ago said that the leader of another division of factorhy production was "not my boss". We both work to produce goods for his line to finish and ship, We are, essentially, both his suppliers. So, yes, since he knows what he needs to have produced and shipped at that time, we do in fact work for him in that moment.
I have had people tell me how to do my job and ignored them. When my boss tells me, I listen. When some of my bosses tell me, I chafe at the bit, but I do it, unwillingly. I judge one boss placed over me by God to be better than another boss placed over me by God. And I see it time and again from everyone I work with. I've suggested to others to praise for Trump and they tell me: "Not THAT guy." I tend to forget it myself.
Arrogance. ARROGANCE.
Satan thought he knew better than God and we all ended up catching the bug.
It's arrogant to think we can live as we please if we have given our lives to God. It's arrogant to think we can keep our gift hidden when we are told to share. It is arrogant to have priorities other than nurturing the life of the Spirit in us...
...BECAUSE that it the life we have for eternity. Perfectly connected with God.
The life Satan and the other angels all saw coming, coming to puny powerless twits, They understood God's ways. He let himself be born in helplessness and powerlessness yet rise to ultimate importance in a small puny country so small at the Earth must seem from an eternal viewpoint. To say we would become LIKE him.
Yet we end up singing songs as if we were Him speaking. We end up praying and talking to Satan in our prayers, telling him what to do because we think we ARE Jesus. We resist His word by not making disciples, by not witnessing. We think the other guy is less saved than us for worshiping on the "wrong day." We are so arrogant in our behavior that we quench the POWER of the Spirit and THEN the Spirit.
We give our accuser all the ammunition to wound Jesus as He stands witness next to God to cover our sins. We are actually arrogant enough to think that's all He's there for. We don't admit it to ourselves, but our (we can read "I, me, and My" here any time.) behavior speaks for itself.
Though talking of unsaved scientists, e.g., Carl Sagan who we've mentioned earlier, Kurt Bruner, in Inlings of God, discusses how a scientist like Sagan who said of Christianity in a reply letter to writer Bob Garner: "The evidence is not yet in." could be untouched by the wonders they observe. Bruner's concluded that the difference between them and scientists like Hugh Ross who wrote the book, "The Thumbprint of God" referring to how Ross sees God's work in the universe, that difference was a "tether of humility."
"As we explore the wonders of human discovery and innovation, we need that same tether...human invention is nothing more than entering into a creative process launched long before any of us appeared on stage (I hear God asking Job where he was when God was creating the universe. W)...Computer programmers gave Stephen Hawking the ability to speak. Divine creativity made the brain that gave him something to say."
(Aside: Hawking also died recently.)
Let me widen the scope of the statement. We all need "the tether of humility" to actually reach God. We have to admit his existence to even realize we need to come to him and we need to repent of our old ways to join Him in the Spirit. All of which takes humility, the realization that it isn't about US.
We were created to join him in the Spirit and to nurture now the relationship for eternity. For eternity.
We face our mortality here with so much fear if there is no Him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThVjiEuDaUs
Lyrics
And I'll fall on my knees
Tell me how's the way to be
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me all that I should know
Tell me how's the way to be
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me all that I should know
And I'll fall on my knees
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me how's the way to be
To evoke some empathy
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me how's the way to be
To evoke some empathy
Danger will follow me
Everywhere I go
Angels will call on me
And take me to my home
Well this tired mind just wants to be led home
Everywhere I go
Angels will call on me
And take me to my home
Well this tired mind just wants to be led home
And I'll fall on my knees
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me how's the way to see
Show me all that I could be
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me how's the way to see
Show me all that I could be
And I'll fall on my knees
Tell me how's the way to be
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me why I feel so low
Tell me how's the way to be
Tell me how's the way to go
Tell me why I feel so low
Danger will follow me
Everywhere I go
Angels will call on me
And take me to my home
Well these tired eyes just want to remain closed
Everywhere I go
Angels will call on me
And take me to my home
Well these tired eyes just want to remain closed
I don't see clearly
Can't feel nothing, no
Can you hear me
Can't feel nothing, no
Can you hear me
And I'll fall on my knees
And danger will follow me now everywhere I go
Angels will call on me and take me to my home
Angels will call on me and take me to my home
And danger will follow me now everywhere I go
Angels will call on me and take me to my home
Angels will call on me and take me to my home
And danger will follow me now everywhere I go
Angels will call on me and take me to my home
Angels will call on me and take me to my home
And the only thing to say is, "You've BEEN told, over and over."
And, in our fear, we dream of it this way so often:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9BSsIX2j7M
That's our arrogance. "We won't get old. " "We'll never die."
Our reality:
42 So is it with the coming back from the dead. It is planted in death; it comes again in life:
43 It is planted in shame; it comes again in glory: feeble when it is planted, it comes again in power:
44 It is planted a natural body; it comes again as a body of the spirit. If there is a natural body, there is equally a body of the spirit.
And there's another song called "Everywhere I Go". (Did you ever notice we capitalize the I the same way we do the G in God? Smile.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm43IfpOLCs
And the open secret: the Spirit will direct us forever so long as we let it here, so long as we accept this training period, so long as we learn to hear the voice and follow the lead, the lead in the Bible, the lead for our lives. Let Him fill us here. We'll die but we will never, after that, grow old.
See it this way: we are networked into the God computer. We are tethered by wireless humility. And the network can't be hacked or broken. We will worship Him forever, but we need to realize singing doesn't comprise all of worship. Michael throwing Satan out of heaven is as much an act of worship as singing God's praise. Our lives are the worship. If I were a good singer I might jump on the song thing, but I always feel there is so much more than standing in a pew and ringing out. We are there forever to DO as we are here to "GO into all the world". And to thank Him for the opportunity to serve. To be with Him always in the Spirit, always in contact with him and the rest of the Body.
We will have what Satan envies most of all. envies so much he wants us fallen, that he can't wait to accuse us every second of every day for so long as he can. Envies not that we are God, not that we are like God or empowered in any way like Him, though Satan does envy power. Envies not that we "share" the throne in being a part of Him. He envies that we share God, something God did not create him to do. He envies the relationship and so hates us for it. Hates God for giving it to someone else. All the rest emanates from that: we have something he can never have and anyone lost to God is a kind of victory. Anyone our arrogance and their arrogance loses is the greatest loss. All the wars through the ages were to kill the lost and kill the ones who might get them saved, get them into "the body of Christ" guided by a marriage commitment and sealed in the Spirit for eternity.
And with that we return to the battles and then the judgements, Just keep in mind what it is all about. Focus on the end and understand we have a universe of wonder to give us only a taste of what waits beyond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKpy15xBW4w
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