I was given one for my birthday from a good friend. When I took it out of the small package, I thought he was playing a trick on me.
I didn’t say anything until one day he asked me how it was doing. I sadly said it was dead. He started laughing and told me to go home and put it in a little water. I did, and to my amazement in a few days it had uncurled from a little dry brownish dead looking ball to a beautiful greenish, full of life plant. It is called the Rose of Jericho or the Resurrection Plant.
That little plant reminds me of a dynamic in the Christian life.
Our physical bodies are deteriorating, drying or getting older every day, and it has a date with death.
Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,...
The great news is that even though our bodies are drying physically our spirits can be alive.
Romans 8:9-11 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
When we ask God to forgive our sins and call upon, and put our faith in Jesus Christ, alone, ( John 5:24-26 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.)
we get a new spirit. The same Spirit or power that resurrected Christ from the grave.
1 Corinthians 6:14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
And just as that little plant when exposed to water blossomed, so will every Christian when brought into the presence of the Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15:52, 57 ... in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. (57) But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 9:28 ... so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
See you in Church next Sunday.