Praise our wonderful Father that this is not all there is. Since the dawn of time man has worshiped that which is beyond him, even if he struggled to know what that was. He could see God all around him but he could not know him until God made himself known, which he did at the time of Moses. He birthed a nation to represent him to the world, so that he could glorify himself through them and draw all the nations to him. Unfortunately Israel wanted to keep God all to themselves but that didn't stop God and his plan to reconcile the world to him. So he sent Jesus. We know the plan and we are thankful today for that plan but my point is that there is more to us and to life than what we see. We are more than flesh. Our flesh only houses the greater part which is spiritual.
There is more than what we see and Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:44) Even followers of Jesus sometimes act like there is nothing more than this as they desperately try to build a life for themselves with all the comforts they can manage. But consider a moment what we have to look forward to. How many of you are suffering from diseases or perhaps birth defects. These are natural to this sin burdened life. Disease and defects are all a result of the fallen state of this world. Our bodies are weak, frail, and susceptible to temptation. But God has a plan to redeem our bodies along with our heart and mind:
So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)
I get excited about this by many of us don't, dismissing it as uninteresting as we pursue whatever comfort we can here. I am looking forward to it because I will finally be able to shed the thing that hinders me from expressing the full joy that I feel. Sure I can sing, dance and shout now, but imagine what we will be able to do with our spiritual body. Imagine how much more beautiful we can sing the praises of our Lord with this spiritual body. Presently I do not have a good singing voice but in our perfect spiritual bodies we will all have great voices. We will have endless energy to dance, shout, leap with the praises of our God. Right now I get tired, I have to sleep. My voice gets sore, my legs weak. I have limits. But not with the spiritual body we will be receiving.
I realize it is hard to imagine but just try for a moment. This spiritual body that will be ours at the resurrection will be absolutely perfect. No blemishes, no eating disorders, no diseases, no concern about beauty or of growing old. There will be no dieting, plastic surgery, beauty contests, ugly comments. There will be no lose of energy, sleepless nights, aches or pains. We will be fully transformed and redeemed with a body created to last for eternity. When God looks upon us now that is how he sees us because he has already declared it. We are now only waiting for the appointed day for it to be done.
Please, when you look in the mirror don't look at the temporary shell we have been given but look at what God has declared and planned for us. See yourself with God's eyes. You will soon have a body that matches the beauty of your spirit and most importantly we will be just like Jesus. What we have is temporary, in seed form and when we are buried, as if dead, that seed will be transformed into the beauty of God's design. So rejoice, God has a plan and you are included in it.
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