Celebrating
Love of JESUS, Hope of Heaven, and Faith in the Word of God.
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Christian Speaker
Celebrating |
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CITY IN THE SKY - Chapter Twenty Four
THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
Science tells us about God's physical creation. The Bible describes God's spiritual creation. God has physical things like stars, suns, planets, clouds, trees and flesh of men and animals. These are scientifically and physically understood. God also has spiritual things, like the Holy City, the book of life, the tree of life, the river of life, mansions, angels, departed saints, salvation and souls of men. These things can only be believed and understood and seen by the help of the Spirit of God. There are, however, some spiritual things which are visible to mortals. The Bible is a spiritual book, saints on earth are spiritual people, and someday soon the spiritual city of God will appear in the sky visible to all people on earth. Physical things are temporal; they decay and pass away and and are no more. But spiritual things are unfading and eternal. When day and night cease, the sky and the earth vanish like smoke, glorified saints will still be enjoying God and His City in the sky in the spiritual realm. It is very important for us to realize that God Who is a Spirit made us by putting a spirit of being into a body of flesh, and that when our first parents sinned by disobeying God, the spirit of man was separated from God (spiritual death) by that sin, and the body of man was doomed to suffer physical death. So because the spirit of man is dead (separated from God) mankind does not understand, believe or see spiritual things. The fall of man was not an accident, but was intended by God to give man freedom of choice and the knowledge of good and evil. However, we must realize that we have been put into a situation from which we must escape! Now the same God Who put the spirit of man within him and allowed man to be tempted and fall and suffer physical and spiritual death has also made a way of escape from death. We cannot escape death by our own physical strength or mental ability, and even in God's plan this physical body must die or be changed, but God is interested in our eternal spirit. In the plan and will of God, He sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to indwell a physical body and to die for us in that body, thus paying the death penalty for our sin. After three days God changed the dead physical body of Jesus into a glorified lively spiritual body in which Jesus could appear to mortals, they being yet in physical bodies. It is the will and plan of God that the same spiritual power which gave Jesus eternal spiritual life can give us eternal spiritual life. It is God's will that we simply believe this plan and say 'Jesus forgive my sins.' By this simple prayer and faith in God's plan we can escape eternal separation from God (spiritual death). By this simple prayer of faith our spirit is born again by God's Spirit (brought back into spiritual fellowship with God). God's Spirit witnesses and communes wit our spirit and we know we have passed from death into life. But God's plan for us includes far more than just the thrill of our spirit being born again by His Spirit. When we are willing to follow Jesus fully, there is a glorious life of power and blessing as His Spirit fills us and flows through us to others. And when we are totally surrendered to God's will and plan, He will show us things to come, and, like the apostle Paul, we can visit the spiritual heaven, the City of God. Then we will with diligence make preparation to live there forever. And when Jesus comes again He will give us who are born again (whether alive or in a grave) a new eternal spiritual body instead of this dying corruptible body we now live in, so that we will be able to live in the light of God's presence in the Holy City of God - forever.
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