Wednesday, August 24 - Kathryn

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is 1 Chronicles 26-27, 1 Corinthians 15:1-34

Good morning!  I do not find it difficult to speak of the end of the world after we felt an earthquake in our neck of the woods.  And we don't get them here very often here on the east coast.  Whew!  Makes one sure of where you are going after you breathe your last.

As I was reading the I Corinthians passage, I was thinking "whats the big deal?  I mean, come on, everyone knows that you go somewhere when you die."  But then again, maybe they don't.  If you think about it that thought process would explain much of the world's behavior today.  If there is no place to go when we die and there is no one to answer to about the things that we do, then why try to be good?  Why not just have as much fun?  Or to say it a different way "Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die!"  I see now why Paul spent so much time talking about the resurrection.  And it's not just so that we know we have an authority over us.  No, he's saying that if there is no resurrection then our faith is nothing and what Christ did on the cross is nothing.  If we have no resurrection after death then there was no purpose to Christ dying on the cross and being raised again on the third day.  Resurrection is such a integral part of our salvation.  This life is not the end.  That is reassuring to me.

I saw a scripture that I had never seen before:

²⁴Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.

This is from the New King James that I personally read.  This scripture is awesome to me.  It shows the power and big-ness of God.  We are looking to another presidential election here.  (Ugh.)  We think these men and women have so much power.  And all they really have is lots of money, lots of charisma and lots of white, shiny teeth.  Apart from God they have no power.  They don't realize their power is from God.  And one day all of those powerful governments, who can make or break people, will be brought down before the feet of God.  I don't know about you, but this makes me feel a whole lot better about the governments in place today.  They are so temporary and so weak in comparison to the power of our God.  In light of this scripture men and women in government don't seem so powerful after all.  And for that I am joyful.  

 Tomorrow's passage: 1 Chronicles 28-29, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58