(tm) Day 11

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, (John 17:11)

This statement reveals to us the extent Christ lived in the spirit realm. He knew His days on earth were finished. He realized that soon He would be experiencing agony. He was aware also that eternal glory would be His portion as soon as the work of atonement had been completed.

Jesus never was overcome by physical death. He allowed His body to be crucified. Then, through the Holy Spirit, He took His body again. This indeed is spiritual authority and power.

We Christians tend to become so involved in the pursuits of the flesh that our body is a prison rather than a vehicle for our spirit and the Spirit of God. We view physical death as a horrible tragedy, a nightmare that will come true at some dreadful point in the future. How sad that we needlessly permit ourselves to be bound by the fear of death! The Gospel of the Kingdom includes release from the fear of physical death.

Are we in this world? Are we in the next world? It does not matter. The only reality is the Presence of God. It is supremely important that we are serving Him and accepted of Him.

We are in His Presence and serving Him now while in the prison of our earthly flesh. We will continue to serve Him in the glad moment when we are set free from the body and are entirely in the spirit realm. When the Day of Christ comes, our spirit and soul will be reunited with our flesh and the whole will be clothed with a body fashioned from incorruptible eternal life.

What we are in Christ does not change as we pass from one form to the other. The reality we must pursue and guard is our relationship to God. If we are in His Presence, serving Him and rejoicing before Him, all is well with us. What form or vehicle we are in is of little significance. Our concern is that God is pleased with us. If we are in rebellion against God we already are in death and Hell whether we are in the body or out of the body.

We must also learn to place the people whom we love in the care of Christ and God. We take care of them and pray for them while we are with them. If we should be separated from them for a season, or if we or they should die, we have complete confidence that our loved ones are safe in God.

The Spirit of God seems to be speaking that a period of great tribulation and danger soon is to come to the nations of the earth. In such an hour it will be critically important that we know how to place our loved ones in the hands of Christ for safekeeping.