"CHANGING PLACES"
What does the heavenly "River of Life" look like? What does Heaven look like? We can only imagine, but its description causes us to long for it, read about it with awe, and "sow to reap it" one day! "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (Galatians 6:8) The bottom line? In this life, we are ever sowing ... if we are breathing; we are either sowing to the flesh, or we are sowing to the Spirit (capital "S," meaning the Spirit of God).
When the circle is complete, we move! Everybody lives on somewhere ... it's either Heaven or Hell ... we simply change places. We replace earth with another "place," but we all live on eternally. We have all of our senses still intact in either Heaven or Hell; we know this because the rich man who was in Hell in Luke 16:24, called out for Lazarus to dip his finger in cool water to cool his tongue, because he said he was tormented in the flame. The rich man changed places!
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift
of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 6:23)
Another definition for "death" is really just "changing places." The word "web" means: a complex structure or design, which is a good explanation of Heaven and Hell; it's complex to us, because none of us has ever been there. So, we could call "death:" moving to a different "web" site; taking a trip to a foreign destination; going on an eternal leave, or just "changing places." However, we want to look at it; it requires planning, preparing, and sowing so that our crop comes up in the right place!
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will
also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit,
who lives in you."
(Romans 8:11)
Spirit is with a capital "S" in the above verse, and it is this Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, that fills us, and we will speak with other tongues as the spirit gives the utterance. (Acts 2; Acts 19) The Bible says that we don't know what to pray sometimes, so when we are praying in the Spirit, or in other tongues, we are speaking directly to God. It is this Spirit in us, which will raise us to meet our Lord in the air at the Rapture of the church. (Romans 8:11) That is why it is essential that all believers be filled with the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. You say, I have His Spirit, but I have never spoken in tongues." There is more for you; see Acts 19. This is all about sowing to the Spirit and preparing to "change places."
Romans 8:9 states it best about being filled with the Spirit, "You, however, are contolled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." This is why our Lord wants to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, Joel 2:28, so that we will all be "equipped" to be raised to meet Him in the air at the glorious day when the dead in Christ will rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord!
"Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit
of life set me free from the law of sin and death."
(Romans 8:2)
Sowing and reaping are understood laws of God; no matter what we sow, we will eventually reap the consequences of that seed. You could say life is a boomerang; whatever we throw out there, it's going to come right back to us. You say, "Well, I see people who are kind, living for God, filled with the Spirit, and all kinds of bad things happen to them." It's not over yet! The rain falls on the just and the unjust. And ... when we get to heaven, we will see all the times the Angels of God protected us from danger and destruction; all the times the saints of Almighty God were blessed with "unseen" blessings; all the times the "seemingly bad car trouble" kept us from a severe wreck further down the road; the times something happened here to spare us there ... It's not over yet!
Sow, children, Sow, ... Sow to the Spirit of Jesus Christ; sow in fields of righteousness for His name's sake; sow in crops of souls; sow the gifts of the Spirit in lost empty vessels; sow your talents in Zion to reap in the New Jerusalem; Sow ... the Lord Jesus Christ will do the sifting ... and, if we sowed to the Spirit ...
For all those who quesion the validity of the Bible, or who just don't buy all this "religion stuff;" it comes down to this. It's very simple; there are only TWO destinations, whether you believe it or not ... and, one day every single one of us will "change places."
(Visit promiselandchurch.net and theexperience238.com.
PromiseLand Church, Austin, Texas, Pastor Kenneth Phillips)
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