1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

For Reading and Meditation:     2 Timothy 1:1-18

Several of the world's religions, when faced with the perplexing issue of Christ's return from the dead, explain it in terms of reincarnation. A proponent of one of the Eastern religions says: "Christ's resurrection was really a reincarnation - another soul in another body." I once heard a Christian minister declare...

"So shall we ever be with the LORD." 1 Thessalonians 4:17

While we are here the LORD is with us, and when we are called away we are with Him. There is no dividing the saint from His Savior. They are one, and they always must be one: Jesus cannot be without His own people, for He would be a Head without a body. Whether caught up into the air, or resting in paradise, or sojourning here, we are with Jesus; and who shall separate us...

Even the sweetest visits from Christ, how short they are-and how transitory! One moment our eyes see him, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, but again a little time and we do not see him, for our beloved withdraws himself from us; like a roe or a young hart he leaps over the mountains of division; he is gone to the land of spices, and feeds no more among the lilies.

"If to-day he deigns to bless us With a sense of pardoned sin, He to-morrow may distress...

Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility. "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They "sleep in Jesus," but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed them from their sins in his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep? The idea connected with sleep is "rest," and that is the thought...

How are we to react when one of our loved ones dies in the Lord? Some Christians fall apart emotionally. Others, while sorrowful, are able to bear up heroically. It depends on how deep our roots are in God and how fully we appropriate the great truths of our faith.

First of all, we should view the death from the Savior's standpoint. It is an answer to His prayer in John 17:24, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be...

One of the last desires to which Christ gave utterance before leaving this world, was expressed in these words: " Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." And these words " I am," have a meaning that is very vast, referring perhaps to his place in the affections of the Father, to his moral purity, and specially to the manifestation of his divine glory. " I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." When Peter saw his...

The Jews who gnashed with their teeth on Stephen, hurried him forth without the walls of Jerusalem, and stoned him to death with a fury like that with which they had crucified his master and forerunner, would have been confounded to learn that the stoned Stephen was after all not dead, but sleeping a heavenly and exquisite sleep. They will see him when he awakes; when he comes forth again, his spirit from the chambers of the skies, his dust from the chambers of earth when Stephen, with his...

Luke 24:1-12

Luke 24:1-12

The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. § He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!Therefore, beloved,...