We work out and exercise for hours upon hours, week after week, month after month, only to find that we’ve only slightly changed our heart rates and have gotten rid of very little body fat. We take cholesterol-reducing or blood pressure-reducing medication, vitamin supplements, additional amino acids, all sorts of weird herbs, specially mixed protein drinks, and sometimes even those nasty caffeine "high energy" drinks. Vegetables, fruits, or the strange "universal smoothie" combinations of all kinds of sick stuff. Whatever it takes, we’ll desperately try it.
Our bodies trudge along through it all, just trying to keep up with our spirits. Time eventually wears them down to decay, and we suffer through soreness, arthritis, lack of coordination, decreases in endurance/increases of fatigue, loss of strength, hearing, or eyesight, poor posture, strains, pulls, rips, and sometimes related diseases, viruses, cancers, you name it. And tending to have a lot of health-related problems, (often despite how we’ve treated our bodies over time), the biggest health concern that everyone eventually faces is death.
John 5:28-29 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out-- those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." (NIV)
Christ’s Resurrection Gives Us Hope
"There is no handicap parking in Heaven."
Fortunately, as we age and mature, this isn’t the only body we have to look forward to. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul argues that we have no hope if Jesus was not raised from the dead, and gives the great assurance to Christian saints: "In Christ all will be made alive." (vs. 22) How will this be? In the resurrection! Here are some notions regarding the resurrection that should likewise encourage us and give us hope:
We will all be changed - (1 Cor. 15:51)
The perishable will clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality - (1 Cor. 15:42, 53)
Christ will reign until He has put all enemies under his feet; the last enemy to be destroyed is death - (1 Cor. 15:25-26)
Death will be swallowed up in victory; Death and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire - (1 Cor. 15:54; Rev. 20:14)
We shall bear the likeness of the man from Heaven - (1 Cor. 15:49)
Our new bodies will be spiritual, having been raised in glory and power - (1 Cor. 15:43-46)
Sounds good to me.
