Sunday Morning Reflections_March 4, 2012

The Word of God for wisdom:

Proverbs 10:26 (NLT)
²⁶ Lazy people irritate their employers, like vinegar to the teeth or smoke in the eyes.

The Word of God for inspiration:

Psalm 48:9-10 (NLT)
⁹ O God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your Temple.
¹⁰ As your name deserves, O God, you will be praised to the ends of the earth. Your strong right hand is filled with victory.

The Word of God for encouragement:

Mark 12:25-27 (HCSB)
²⁵ For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.
²⁶ Now concerning the dead being raised—haven't you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?
²⁷ He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are badly deceived."

My observation:

Our focal passage is the response of Jesus to the hypothetical doctrinal question the Sadducees asked him about marriage in heaven. Jesus briefly touched on marriage in heaven, but that was not his focus. Jesus went to the heart of the matter.

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, and they only believed the Pentateuch. So Jesus answered them by quoting a verse from the scriptures that they believed in to teach them that there really is a resurrection of the dead.

Exodus 3:6 (HCSB)
⁶ Then He continued, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Jesus asked the Sadducees "Haven't your read in the book of Moses?" In the account that Jesus reference God told Moses that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This was long after the death of these men. This is the clincher that seals the deal about the resurrection of the dead.

Mark 12:27 (HCSB)
²⁷ He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are badly deceived."

My prayer:

Father God, my dear Father, I am so glad that the grave is not the end of the story for those who have been redeemed by the precious blood on Your son, Jesus Christ, my Savior, and the Lord of my life.

Father, I thank you that there is life after the grave. I rest in the blessed assurance that when they lay me in the ground on earth that I will be fully alive in heaven, and that God will still be my God, He will be my God forever.

John 11:26 (HCSB)
²⁶ Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever. Do you believe this?"

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My blog: Sharing the Word of God Daily
http://herbcotton.blogspot.com/

Mark 4:20 (ESV)
²⁰ But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold."

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