A reminder
Christ has risen! I need to remind myself of the gospel every day. By this gospel, I am saved if I hold firmly to the word. Otherwise I have believed in vain. For what I receive I pass on to others: Christ died for our sins in exact prediction to the scriptures and has risen. He appeared to more than five hundred people, most of whom were alive at the time the gospels were written. Moreover, he appeared to Paul, the greatest enemy of the gospel itself. We should remind ourselves that Christ is victorious; we are simply taking a part in his victory. The battle has already been won.

No fear in death
“Death has been swallowed up in victory! Where, O death, is your victory? Where O death, is you sting?” For to live is to enjoy Christ and make Him know, and to die is gain! When we die, we get to be with Christ, we get to see his face, we get to look upon the one we long for. Our life here is but two seconds long in the view of eternity. All pain is just a momentary affliction. I am invincible here until Christ is done with me.

What can I fear? Will it be death? But you know the Christ is my life, and that I shall gain by death. Will it be exile? But the earth and all it's fullness is the Lord's. Will it be the loss of wealth? But we have brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out. Thus all the terrors in the world are contemptible in my eyes; and I smile at all it's good things. Poverty I do not fear; riches I do not sigh for. Death I do not shrink from." -Chrysostom-

So whatever you are going through, whatever affliction you are facing, know that Christ is risen. Our lives should be based around this sole event. Bad grades? Christ is risen! Death of a loved one? Christ is risen! Immense pain? Merely momentary affliction because Christ is risen! We have an unstoppable hope and an untamable joy!


The resurrection is to be the foundation of our life

If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of us say that there is no resurrection of the dead? Or even miracles for that matter? If only by my experiences alone, believe that Christ still works supernatural miracles here and now. If Christ did not rise from the grave, then everything we do is futile. We cannot live in this shadow between “He has Risen” and “He hasn’t risen”. Either we base our sole existence of the joy the glorifying of Christ and the advancement of His kingdom or we remove all of it from our lives. There should be no in between.

“We cannot worship the suffering God today and ignore him tomorrow. We cannot eat and drink the body and blood of the passionate and compassionate God today, and then refuse to live passionately and compassionately tomorrow. If we say or sing, as we so often do, 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit', we thereby commit ourselves, in love, to the work of making his love known to the world that still stands so sorely in need of it. This is not the god the world wants. This is the God the world needs.” N.T. Wright

But Christ has been resurrected. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;  it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

You have never met an ordinary person
 Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You do not have a soul. You are a soul; you have a body. We are eternal beings in Christ. Kingdoms, governments and this earth will pass away, but we will remain. Therefore, each individual is far more important than any civilization. Treat each other as it is so.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear blog readers (if anyone at all), stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.