Good morning, my Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of the living.
May this prayer, be a space where Your eternal truth transcends my temporal worries and limitations.
Today, as I read of the Sadducees, I recognize myself in them with a painful recognition. I, too, often try to understand You with the logic of this world.
I attempt to squeeze Your infinity and the glory of the resurrection into the small, comprehensible compartments of earthly life, laws, and relationships.
And then, to me as to them, Your Word speaks gently, yet firmly.
“Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.’” (Matthew 22:29)
Yes, Lord, I am wrong. I am wrong because I forget that Your power is greater than death. I am wrong because Your Scriptures speak of a reality that transcends all I know.
Forgive my smallness and open the eyes of my heart to Your greatness, helping me keep my thoughts focused on You.
You explain to me that the life to come is not merely a repetition or an improvement of what I live now. It is something entirely new, transformed, unimaginably different, and full of glory. It is a life beyond earthly ties and needs.
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30)
What comfort there is in this, Lord! We will no longer be subject to transience, but we will be like the angels, Your children, children of the resurrection. We will live in Your immediate presence, where earthly shadows fade before the light of Your countenance.
The central truth You are placing in my heart today is this: You are the God of the living. For You, no one truly dies. All who have gone before us in faith are alive in You. This is the faith that Job professed in his deepest distress, and this is the faith I desire to live today.
“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” (Job 19:25)
My Redeemer lives! Because You live, I also will live. My hope in the resurrection is not an empty wish, but a certainty, founded on Your own resurrection, Jesus. By Your death, You have consecrated my death; by Your resurrection, You have guaranteed mine.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)
What Adam began with the fall—the path to death—You, Christ, have turned into the path to life. You are the new Adam, the beginner of the new creation, in which death does not have the final word.
“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22)
Therefore, today I do not live in fear of the end, but in joyful anticipation. In anticipation of that moment, that instant, when Your voice will overpower all transience and call us into eternal life.
“in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)
Thank you, Lord, for this certain hope. Help me to live today as a child of the resurrection, with my eyes fixed on eternity and a heart full of gratitude because You are the God of the living. For in You, all are alive.
Amen.
Amen ❤️