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Tag: death

  • Mission 2 – Vision of your end

    Mission 2 – Vision of your end

    Is your mission a path to a vision for your life?

    Is it a vision of your own only? Will you accomplish what you alone have planned?

    What if something goes wrong and your mission becomes impossible. What then?

    A righteous man lived a long and blessed life, yet near the end of his path of years calamity struck.

    Job 10: KJV

    My soul is weary of my life;

    I will leave my complaint upon myself;

    I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

    Is that you, old man (or woman), who has given up on your mission? Perhaps your years are young, yet your soul longs for the eternity for which it was created.

    In a moment of despair you appeal to a God who seems far from you. In a time of defeat, a timeline of diminishing life, you remember the words familiar from the passing of failing flesh and bones before you.

    Job 10: 

    8 Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about;

      yet thou dost destroy me.

    9 Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay;

      and wilt thou bring me into dust again?

    Oh God! Their days have finished. At the graveside our loved one is lowered into the ground. The dirt is handled and tossed upon the depths which will hold their beloved bones and flesh.

    From clay you were formed

    To dust you will return;

    Ashes to ashes

    Dust to dust.

    Is your mission in life only making the most out of your path to the grave?

    What is missing when your days are done? What of your mission then?

    Every mission involves someone other than your self.

    Job’s mission and the path of a righteous man did not reach the vision he had for his family. Yet his own end was not a life lived in vain.

    Why?

    Who else matters in the life of a righteous man (or woman)?

    GOD – the Person of God.

    Job’s conversations and prayers were with the Person of God.

    In the end, at the graveside of your loved ones and as your loved ones will stand at your graveside: the LORD GOD matters.

    The LORD gives life. The LORD takes away life. Blessed be the LORD.

    To be continued…

     

  • Resurrection of Judgment

    Resurrection of Judgment

    Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice  and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

    John 5:28-29

    We hardly marvel at anything, least of all the worldly about resurrection to the Judgement of God.

    PIA17563 NASA

    Psalm 19 RSV

    The heavens declare the glory of God,
        and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
    2 Day to day pours out speech,
        and night to night reveals knowledge.
    3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
        whose voice is not heard.
    4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
        and their words to the end of the world.

    The GOD of all Glory, Creator of all things, in the beginning – the LORD over all until the end of the expanse of time: GOD, THE LORD has created man in His image; He IS Father of all men, Spirit of Eternal Life and the Existing Son of all Righteousness, given in the flesh for the sins of man!

    And just as it is appointed for man to die once,

    and after that comes judgment, 

    so Christ,

    having been offered once to bear the sins of many,

    will appear a second time, not to deal with sin

    but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

    Hebrews 9:27-28

    Are you, after considering the terror of punishment Jesus suffered for you on the cross, eagerly waiting for Jesus?

    You will see the LORD. You will be resurrected to the Judgement! Do you have forgiveness for ALL of your many sins?

    By the grace of the Cross, I do; and my sins are many. GOD our Father put my punishment on Jesus His Son!

    We will either die as all men before us (women too, of course) OR the Lord will return on the clouds of heaven at an unexpected moment before the time of years takes toll of our failing flesh. We will be judged: either with the grace of forgiveness or judged by the shortcomings of our sins.

    Are you eagerly waiting the Judge who suffered for the sins of mankind on the Cross?

    “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” – Revelation 1:8

    The words of Christ Jesus, who was raised from the dead: the One Who IS:

    Matthew 16: 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

    27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,

    and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

    Matthew 24:27 For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

    30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

    44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

    Hebrews 10:

    “The Lord will judge his people.”

    31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

    Revelation 6:

    15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks,

    “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne,

    and from the wrath of the Lamb,

    17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

     

  • A Temporary Throne – 47

    A Temporary Throne – 47

    CHAPTER 47

    I awoke suddenly (or so I thought).

    I looked all around me in disoriented confusion as I sat up in bed. I was not in the Temporary Throne or in Heaven. No sign of Joseph and his brothers, either.

    No longer was I in the presence of the LORD. I felt an imposing anxiousness of fear rolling over the place where I lay. (It was not my room.) I began to quiver with fear, and then shake with coldness as if I lay in the middle of a night-mare and could not wake up. I wanted to cry out to God, but could not.

    I closed my eyes (for I could not see anyway) and I began to listen to my most unfamiliar surroundings.

    Was I in a cave? An unfamiliar house? A grave? (“Lord, please don’t let this be a casket,” I thought with great fear.)

    Fear! I had been in great awe in the presence of the LORD; but never in fear. (The dream must be over; but what is this horrible nightmare?)

    I heard from a great distance a muffled sound of wailing voices – crying and crying out, shouting in anguish and seemingly loud whispers of the weakest of pleas. What was this? Where was I?

    I could smell something, too – an unfamiliar far-off stench, a choking reminder of the most unpleasant things from stagnant seashore and pungent pollution from the mills from when I once held my breath until I drove by… What was it?

    A chilling memory of black and white photos came to mind as I thought of opening a steel garbage can not knowing what to see and smell inside.

    It was Auschwitz! It was carcass upon carcass.

    I screamed at the sight and sound and smell of death. I did not wake up.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,
    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.