Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death (John 8:51).
To every believer Christ is "the resurrection, and the life" (John 11:25). "I am come," said Jesus, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:54). "To the believer, death is but a small matter. Christ speaks of it as if it were of little moment. 'If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death,' 'he shall never taste of death.' To the Christian, death is but a sleep, a moment of silence and darkness. The life is hid with Christ in God" (The Desire of Ages, p. 787). Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep" (John 11:11).
"For we know," says the apostle, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). And our desire is "not...that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life....Knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight)...willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him" (verses 4-9).
When death had brought grief to the home of Thomas Carlyle, a friend opened the Bible and read the words of Jesus: "Let not your heart be troubled....In my Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:1, 2).
"Aye," muttered Carlyle, "if you were God, you had a right to say that. But if you were only a man, what do you know any more than the rest of us?" And that's the truth. But He is God, and He does know.
MEDITATION PRAYER: "Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!" (Ps. 144:3).
To every believer Christ is "the resurrection, and the life" (John 11:25). "I am come," said Jesus, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:54). "To the believer, death is but a small matter. Christ speaks of it as if it were of little moment. 'If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death,' 'he shall never taste of death.' To the Christian, death is but a sleep, a moment of silence and darkness. The life is hid with Christ in God" (The Desire of Ages, p. 787). Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep" (John 11:11).
"For we know," says the apostle, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). And our desire is "not...that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life....Knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight)...willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him" (verses 4-9).
When death had brought grief to the home of Thomas Carlyle, a friend opened the Bible and read the words of Jesus: "Let not your heart be troubled....In my Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:1, 2).
"Aye," muttered Carlyle, "if you were God, you had a right to say that. But if you were only a man, what do you know any more than the rest of us?" And that's the truth. But He is God, and He does know.
MEDITATION PRAYER: "Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!" (Ps. 144:3).
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