How do you feel about dying? It is said, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.”
For many of us, that seems to be true. Much of our life is devoted to staying on earth. We invest in various ways to try to live longer.
We diet, exercise and take vitamins. We allow ourselves to be poked, prodded and our insides examined in case we need to fight off some intruder, who might seek to remove us from earth.
Should we become ill, we sign on for tortuous treatments to try to stay on earth even a few months longer.
The desire to stay on earth is the basis of every war. People kill other people in an effort to save their own lives or the lives of others.
Satan nailed it when he said to God, “Skin for skin! A man will give all he has for his own life.” (Job 2:4)
Why is it so difficult for us to give up our earth life?
Could it be because we are just not exactly sure what comes next? Can we really live without this earth body?
We don’t remember a life without the body we now have. But have we always had this body? No!
You do not have the same body as you did when you were a child. You do not even have the same body as you did last year this time.
Researchers have found the body’s cells largely replace themselves every 7 to 10 years.
In other words, old cells mostly die and are replaced by new ones during this time span. The cell renewal process happens more quickly in certain parts of the body, but head-to-toe rejuvenation can take up to a decade or so.
This process was created by God. It happens seamlessly and silently. We need not fear how many skin cells we will lose today. We need not fear losing fingernails, toenails or hair. As soon as we relinquish them, God provides more.
Not only does God replace, He sometimes gives something better, something far more glorious than before. The caterpillar, once confined to the ground, emerges from its cocoon, beautiful and able to fly.
Jesus emerged from the tomb, able to walk through walls or simply appear, seemingly out of no where. He was able to rise into the clouds.
Jesus was the living example of how life in a human body is a series of changes. Jesus showed us that death does not kill us. We surrender what we will no longer need. We receive with Joy bodies perfectly suited for our new life.
Jesus did all He did right out in the open. He did it so we would not fear death. If you have ever been a slave to the fear of death, know this. Jesus came so you don’t have to be afraid.
Paul shared this about Jesus.
“Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His Death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Hebrews 2:14-15
The real you will never die. You will shed an earthly body that no longer fits you. And God will give you a new body that fits you perfectly. You will continue to live.
“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.”
1 Corinthians 15:35-44
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’”
1 Corinthians 15:54
Live every moment of your assignment to earth. Enjoy it. But do not be afraid … do not resist … the day when Jesus comes and tells you, “Your new body is ready.”
What will our new body look like? Something more glorious than we can even imagine.
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
1 John 3:2
Would you rather hang on to a decaying earth body or surrender it to be made like Jesus?
“Now to Him Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
“according to His Power that is at work within us,
“to Him be Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21
