Eternity Day 19

Driven by Eternity     DAY 19

THE FUTURE OF BELIEVERS

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. (Psalm 17:15)

Many people hope their eternal destination will work itself out, but those who believe in Jesus can know exactly what to expect when they leave this world for the next (John Bevere)

Our hope is sure, it’s of His doing.  Our process is sketching because it involves our doing.  This devotional is so good I’m just going to put most of it in here.

The very moment a person places their faith in Jesus, they become a new creation. Their spirit is born again and is recreated in the image of Jesus. This is our first taste of eternal life, but it is not our last. Every person is made up of three parts—spirit, soul, and body. We are spirits with souls (a combination of intellect, will, and emotion) who live in physical bodies. When our spirits are born again, we become able to enter God’s throne room in heaven by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus. We do this in prayer or through worship. And, once our spirit is saved, the salvation of our soul begins.

Our soul carries all that we have learned during our earthly life through either experiences or formal training, along with all the emotions associated with these lessons. These can be good lessons, like those learned from a godly and loving family, or they can be bad lessons, like those learned through trauma or abuse. Regardless of what our souls carry in our moment of salvation, it must be redeemed unto God’s salvation. Our intellect must learn to affirm God’s truth, our will must become submitted to God’s, and our emotions gloriously become healed and whole through God’s freedom and wisdom. We engage in this process through the Word of God and our obedience to it. The soul is the only part of man whose rate of salvation we help determine. The transformation of our soul is crucial to our finishing well as believers.

Finally, our bodies will be saved. As Paul writes, “So, while living in this ‘tent,’ we groan under its burden, not because we want to die but because we want these new bodies. We crave for all that is mortal to be swallowed up by eternal life” (2 Corinthians 5:4 TPT). We already feel the tension between the eternal realm and the temporary one we still live in, for our spirits have joined the eternal already, but our bodies are still mortal. Yet we know our bodies are only like tents, temporary dwellings that will be rolled up by death so that our eternal spirits can be given a new, eternal body. These new bodies truly will last forever, never aging, and will have new abilities just as Jesus did after He was raised from the dead.

If you believe in Jesus, God’s salvation has already begun and it will one day be completed—spirit, soul, and body. Let God’s salvation grow in you today.

Bevere, John. Driven by Eternity: 40-Day Devotional: Make your life count today and forever (pp. 80-81). BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC. Kindle Edition.