Victory Parades

Today's Daily Soap {Scripture | Observation | Application | Prayer}

• S: Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it's logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil's hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death. Hebrews 2:14-15 [MSG] In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. 2 Corinthians 2:14 [MSG]
• O: Christ turns funeral processions into victory parades.
• A: What is the one thing that most people fear more than any other? Death. Really. When you get right down to the nitty gritty, most people would say that their greatest fear is dying. And the majority of those who would say that are among those who don't know themselves to be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. My mother passed away several years (6 or 7) ago after a long and ugly battle with cancer. It consumed her, literally. She knew that it was cancer long before the disease could be medically diagnosed. When it was diagnosed it was found to be running rampant through her body. Hope was slim. Hope, that is, of defeating the cancer and maintaining her earthly existence. But it wasn't her earthly existence that really mattered. Her real enemy was not cancer. My mother defeated the ultimate enemy -- Satan -- long ago when she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. It is for this reason that the things of the earth had no hold over my mother. Not even cancer. She knew her Lord, knew where she was spending eternity, and was eager to meet Him. It was her conviction to her faith that allowed her to let go gracefully of this life, to receive her new body, and to be welcomed into the loving arms of Christ. And it was that same conviction to faith that she taught her children that allowed us to let her go -- to actually encourage her to go home to the Lord -- and that turned her funeral procession into a victory parade. As hundreds and hundreds of souls that she touched showed up to pay their last respects to my mother, while we felt the loss of her passing, we celebrated in her victory over death through eternal life with God. I still miss Mom dearly today -- sometimes achingly. But I rejoice in the fact that I'll some day see her again in Paradise.
• P: Lord, Thank You for victory. Thank You for making it possible to spend eternity with You, just as my mother is doing now.

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