Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – 1 Corinthians 15:35-58
Set – Psalms 42; 1 Corinthians 15
Go! – Judges 8; Psalms 42; 1 Corinthians 15
1 Corinthians 15:35-58
35 Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Just how are the dead going to be raised? What kind of bodies will they have when they come back to life?” 36 Don’t be a fool! The seed you plant doesn’t produce life unless it dies. Right? 37 The seed doesn’t have the same look, the same body, if you will, of what it will have once it starts to grow. It starts out a single, naked seed—whether wheat or some other grain, it doesn’t matter— 38 and God gives to that seed a body just as He has desired. For each of the different kinds of seeds God prepares a unique body. 39 Or look at it this way: not all flesh is the same. Right? There is skin flesh on humans, furry flesh on animals, feathery flesh on birds, and scaly flesh on fish. 40 Likewise there are bodies made for the heavens and bodies made for the earth. The heavenly bodies have a different kind of glory or luminescence compared to bodies below. 41 Even among the heavenly bodies, there is a different level of brilliance: the sun shines differently than the moon, the moon differently than the stars, and the stars themselves differ in their brightness.42 It’s like this with the resurrection of those who have died. The body planted in the earth decays. But the body raised from the earth cannot decay. 43 The body is planted in disgrace and weakness. But the body is raised in splendor and power. 44 The body planted in the earth was animated by the physical, material realm. But the body raised from the earth will be animated by the spiritual. Since there is a physical, material body, there will also be a spiritual body. 45 That’s why it was written, “The first man Adam became a living soul”; the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. 46 Everything has an order. The body is not animated first by the spiritual but the physical; then the spiritual becomes its life-giving source. 47 The first man, Adam, came from the earth and was made from dust; the second man, Jesus, has come from heaven. 48 The earth man shares his earth nature with all those made of earth; likewise the heavenly man shares His heavenly nature with all those made of heaven. 49 Just as we have carried the image of the earth man in our bodies, we will also carry the image of the heavenly man in our new bodies at the resurrection.
50 Now listen to this: brothers and sisters, this present body is not able to inherit the kingdom of God any more than decay can inherit that which lasts forever. 51 Stay close because I am going to tell you a mystery—something you may have trouble understanding: we will not all fall asleep in death, but we will all be transformed. 52 It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! 53 We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life. 54 And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:
Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death.
55 Hey, Death! What happened to your big win?
Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?
56 Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed. Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law. 57 Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, who brought us victory over the grave.58 My dear brothers and sisters, stay firmly planted—be unshakable—do many good works in the name of God, and know that all your labor is not for nothing when it is for God.
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
Since the resurrection on that first Easter morning, My followers wondered what their spiritual bodies would be like. Many speculate on the substance, shape, and size of something you cannot comprehend. I returned after the resurrection in a form all of My disciples could understand, in a way. Even then, My form was incomprehensible. I appeared behind closed doors, yet didn’t fit their criteria for their legends of ghosts and spirits. I appeared as flesh and blood with scars in My hands, feet, and side. I ate and those around Me could see Me, talk to Me, hear Me. Yet I came at went at will at distances the people of those times could not understand.
Paul glimpsed a piece of heaven and the spiritual bodies there when I met him on the road to Damascus. What he saw, he could not describe. Ezekiel caught a glimpse of My glory and words failed him when he tried to describe the scene. John tried his best to describe the throne room of heaven, but couldn’t begin to share the splendor of his vision with the limitation of the words in his vocabulary.
Paul’s description to settle the questions of early believers provides some thought and insight into just how difficult it is for you to comprehend something to incredible to begin to understand. The best Paul could do is share the change that happens between seeds and the plants they produce. It’s a good analogy, though.
From a tiny acorn, I produce the mighty oak tree. To look at that small seed, the size of the end of your finger, I grow something you could never imagine it housing. I talked about a mustard seed, barely visible, that produces a plant in which birds build their nests. Who would dream it could happen.
Now imagine your bit of creation dust as the physical casing of that spiritual body Paul talks about. The body that seed produces at the final resurrection of the dead is as incomprehensible as those scenes that Paul and John saw of heaven. If I tried to describe those new bodies to you, you could not comprehend them. Just know that there awaits those who trust in Me new bodies, spiritual bodies, unlike anything you know.
You will know each other. You will know Me. You will live forever. You will experience no pain or suffering. You will know no night or darkness. You will labor in love as I created you. You will worship Me throughout eternity as I intended at creation. All things will become new. Indescribable. Incomprehensible. Paul says earlier in his letter, “Now you see as through a darkened, distorted piece of glass, but then you will see and know clearly even as I have known you throughout your life.
Don’t worry about what the next life will be like or what kind of body you will have. It doesn’t really matter. Just know that you’ll like it…But only if you love Me more.
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