The Daily Word of Righteousness

We Shall Not Precede . . ., #6

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (I Corinthians 15:51,52—NIV)

First Corinthians, Fifteen informs us we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye.

This change is totally important if we are to be caught up along with the resurrected saints to meet the Lord in the air.

Consider the change that will have to be made in our body if we are to be caught up with millions of resurrected saints to meet the Lord high in the air, where it is freezing cold and the air is too thin to breathe.

Remember, the transformation will take place while we are still flesh-and-blood human beings.

The blood in our veins and arteries will dry up and vanish.

All the organs that use blood will change so they can function by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lungs will no longer be needed. The purpose of lungs is to bring oxygen to our blood.

We no longer will need food, at least not as we know food, because the Holy Spirit will provide our energy.

(Yet, the resurrected Christ ate fish in the presence of His apostles!)

Jesus said, "Remember Lot's wife." Why is this? Because when we begin to feel these changes from mortality to immortality we will be frightened. If our faith does not hold strong we will turn back, just as Lot's's wife did.

Enoch was translated by faith. Unless we have been prepared by a lifetime of trusting God we will withdraw from the process of being made eternal in body.

I know personally of a high-school girl who was lame. She was prayed for and instantly healed. When she went to walk she became frightened because she felt so different.

She asked the Lord to withdraw the healing, and He did.

In order to keep a healing the Lord gives us we must be whole in character with faith in the Lord. Otherwise we will draw back.

This is why Jesus said, "Remember Lot's wife."

There are people in wheelchairs who ask for prayer to be healed. But in their heart they do not want to be healed because they have become accustomed to being waited on. This certainly is not true of every sick person or every person in a wheelchair.

Change is difficult for people, because no matter how painful their experience may be, it is familiar. Some are ready for healing while others are afraid.

So it shall be when the trumpet sounds. Some will be ready to leave the familiar flesh-and-blood metabolism while others will be fearful, thinking of what this might mean to their familiar lifestyle.

It is amazing how human beings at times clutch their pitiful rags because they are so afraid of change.

Many believers in the Christian churches of today believe they are ready for the Lord to come and transform their bodies from the conventional human state into a transcendent human state. But any change the Lord asks of them today they resist with all their might, being afraid they will lose something of value.

Yet they suppose they are as Enoch who was taken from the earth and carried up to God while still alive.

To be continued.