Sunday 5 Jan 2014

Sunday Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:35-38

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 15:37
And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain.

Devotion:
One thing that is hard for us to accept is how we can be raise from the dead. Death is so final and we see how the human body quickly degrades when we do die; but death is necessary in more ways than one. In the plant world death is part of the cycle of life in that the death of plants gives nutrients back into the soil for the next set of plant to grow from. When we plant seeds, they are just that, seeds. We do not plant plants and get baby plants from the next one. Those seeds have to be put into the ground and germinate before a plant will grow from them.

Don’t ask me the ins and out of plants and growth because I did not do so well with the whole biology thing at school; but one thing I do know is that when you put a seed into the ground the seed has to give in and break down a bit before it can start to grow. Most seeds are dry and hard and look pretty much lifeless; they have to have moisture put back into them to start growing and that moisture is what makes things rot! If you leave paper out in the rain it breaks down pretty quickly as the moisture breaks apart the fibres; but in order to make paper you have to break down the fibres so that they can be intermeshed back together again.

So where is this all leading when concerned with us being brought back to life? Well in order for us to be able to be brought back to life, we would first have to die and then something special would have to be put back into our dead bodies for them to bring forward life. We could let our bodies rot and use them as fertilizer for the next plant, but that does not sound such a good plan when you think it through.

God is not going to bring back our bodies in a state where we will all look like zombies from the movies; God is going to bring us back with glorified bodies that will not have rotting parts but will be whole and special; able to last for eternity with Him! Just as we don’t fully understand how a lifeless seed can be given a spark of life and grow into a full plant, God is going to bring us back in a special way that only He knows how. Trust in Him fully to do what He can do and don’t try to over analyse things!

Points to Ponder:
Do you get wrapped up in supernatural details?

Are you trusting God to do His part as only He knows how?