For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Philippians 1: 21-24, NIV.
Heavenly Father, we are so grateful to come into Your presence. As we meet to study Your Word, please draw divinely close to us, and help us to learn Your will for our lives. In the name of Jesus Christ we humbly pray. Amen.
Today, as we continue our study of this interesting portion of Scripture, we want to study it from another aspect, somewhat different from our first devotional. We want to look at it in the light of another passage of Scripture found in the letter to the Hebrews. The apostle, when writing to the Jewish believers, after citing what each Hebrew hero or heroine was being commended for, ended by saying the following: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (11: 39, 40).
Now what had they been promised? We find the answer in verses 13 and 16: “All of these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. . . Instead they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
The Scripture in Hebrews speaks of a heavenly city. The heavenly city that the Bible mentions, is the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, that will descend, “as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21: 2) – the final abode of those who are saved. I asked Julie how this concept of those who had gone before, reconciled with the immediacy of being with Jesus at death. Her response was more or less the following: the beginning of eternity, when our time on earth ended, does not necessarily mean that the dead in Christ went immediately to heaven. Rather, that they were now in a different sphere – not of time, but of eternity! She believed that we all would go to heaven together. She admitted that she had to give further study to her theory.
I will go back to the thought which I shared with you yesterday. When anyone accepts Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and Savior, in that very moment, our eternity begins, because, at that moment, in answer to Jesus’ prayer, we become one with Him and with the Father, ” ‘ “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. . . ” (John 17: 20, 21).
Now let us add the following declarations of Jesus, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he [or she] will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (John 6: 48-51, emphasis provided). The thought that I submit to you today for your consideration, is the following: When you accept Jesus, and remain in the relationship, as long as you are in Him and He in you – you are already living in eternity, with Him, and in the same manner in which He died, but rose again from the dead, because He is eternal, (John 1: 1, 2; 10: 17, 18); in the same way, death will never be able to keep you a prisoner, because you are already dwelling in eternity, even as you rest in your grave! When we hear His voice and rise from the grave, it will seem as if we went immediately from this earth into His presence!
Therefore, all the saints will receive their reward at the same time: when Jesus returns!
Share your thoughts with us on this very interesting topic!