Senior Living - July 10

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. --1 Corinthians 15:51-52

Winston Churchill, the great preacher of yesteryear, planned his own funeral that took place at Saint Paul's Cathedral. Included in the service were many great hymns of the church and the eloquent Anglican liturgy.

At his direction, a bugler, stationed high in the dome of the cathedral, was to play "Taps" after the benediction signaling that the day is over. Then immediately afterward, Churchill instructed another bugler, positioned at the other end, to play the tune "Reveille"—"It's time to get up. It's time to get up. It's time to get up in the morning!"

This was Churchill's testimony to all—though it was the end of his time on earth, it was a time of joy for he was getting up to go home to be with the Lord. At the end of history, the last note for all believers will not be "Taps," but instead "Reveille."

Believers can have hope for the day when death comes. When you take your last breath, know that your soul will go to be with Jesus in heaven and will one day be reunited with a new body when He returns. Death is not the end for the believer, it is just the beginning.

"We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. … For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thessalonians 3:14, 16-17).

Praise God! The worst things are never the last things.

PRAYER CHALLENGE: Thank God for the future you have with Him in heaven. 

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