Saturday, April 7, 2007

4-7-07 The Whole You "I Thessalonians 5:14-28"

Memory Verse: I Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God loves you, all of you; body, soul, and spirit. He is not like the hypocrite who claims to love a man's soul but can't stand the rest of him. It is true that your spiritual needs have priority. You are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33), but stopping there embraces only half the truth.

Consider creation.

Everything is the universe, except the human frame, was simply spoken into existence: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so" (Genesis 1:24).

Not so the body of man: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Genesis 1:26). "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7)

The bodily resurrection of Christ further demonstrates God's interest in our bodies, for when He returns we will be resurrected too: "But every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming" (I Corinthians 15:23).

You have a great future -- the whole you -- at the Lord's return. That will be a great day!

No comments: