Born Yet Again

Death is not so much an ending as a beginning, not so much a losing as a gaining. This time of separating from our body, seems much akin to a birth. As body and soul part company, the body becomes like a vacated chrysalis, an empty shell - the butterfly has flown, the chick has hatched. The life we have "carried" in our body is now breaking free, entering a new, larger, far more challenging world. I'm sure our new existence in the heavenly realm will be one of enormous growth, excitement, and learning, far beyond our imagining. And when our soul breaks free of our body, we will see that this early, earthly existence, while we were still in our mortal "shell," was almost embryonic in nature compared to the growth and glory we will now experience in our new bodies, our new lives. We will be "delivered" into God's hands, and our Father will hold us will all the love and tenderness accorded the newborn. And we will be given over to His eternal keeping.

Job 14.14 - If a man dies shall he live again? This thought gives me hope, so that in my anguish I eagerly await sweet death!

Psalm 84.2 - I long, yes, faint with longing to be able to enter your courtyard and come near to the Living God.

Colossians 3.2 - Let heaven fill your thoughts; don't spend your time worrying about things down here. You should have as little desire for this world as a dead person does. Your real life is in heaven with Christ and God.

2 Corinthians 5.1,4 - For we know that when this tent we live in now is taken down - when we die and leave these bodies - we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will be ours forevermore, made for us by God himself, and not by human hands. While we live in this earthly tent, we groan with a feeling of oppression; it is not that we want to get rid of our earthly body, but we want to have the heavenly put on over us, so that what is mortal will be transformed by life.

2 Corinthians 5.6-8 - Now we look forward with confidence to our heavenly bodies, realizing that every moment we spend in these earthly bodies is time spent away from our eternal home in heaven with Jesus. We know these things are true by believing, not by seeing. And we are not afraid, but are quite content to die, for then we will be at home with the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15.43,44,49 - The bodies we have now embarrass us for they become sick and die; but they will be full of glory when we come back to life again. They are just human bodies at death, but when they come back to life, they will be superhuman bodies. Just as each of us now has a body like Adam's, so someday we will have a body like Christ's.

Philippians 1.21,23 - For what is life? To me it is Christ. Death, then, will bring more. I want very much to leave this life and be with Christ, which is a far better thing.

John 3.6 - Men can only reproduce human life; but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven; so don't be surprised at my statement that you must be born again.

1 Peter 1.23 - You have a new life. It was not passed on to you by your parents, for the life they gave you will pass away. This new one will last forever, for it comes from Christ, God's ever living Message to men.

1Peter 1.3 - It is his boundless mercy that has given us the privilege of being born again, so that now we are members of God's own family.

1 Corinthians 15.52-54 - We shall all be changed. For what is mortal will be changed into what is immortal; what must die must be changed into what cannot die. Death is destroyed.