Job 14:14 “If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes.”

The Romanian weekly Tinerama reported that a woman fainted when she opened her front door and found her husband standing there. It all started when a man named Neagu choked on a fish bone, stopped breathing and collapsed. The family doctor, knowing Neagu’s heart condition, didn’t think twice about proclaiming the 71-year-old dead of a heart attack.

But three days later, grave diggers at the cemetery heard a suspicious sound. They opened Neagu’s coffin to find him surrounded by wilted flowers but very much alive. It took Neagu three weeks to convince the authorities to cancel his death certificate from their register.

Job, however, had more in mind than mere resuscitation. As he looked ahead to that day when he would put aside his mortal body, he asked the age-old question, “Will I live again?” Implied in Job’s question is not the hopeless uncertainty of the pagan world but a quiet confidence that someday it would be so. As a result, he was willing to plod through his trials patiently, knowing that a greater and more glorious day lay ahead.

As believers in Christ, we have even more reason to be confident. We have not only the promise of resurrection (1 Cor. 6:14) but also the example of Christ (Luke 24:1-3). The apostle Paul assured us that what is sown perishable shall be raised imperishable (1 Cor. 15:42-44). That which is placed in the ground will someday be resurrected to rejoin the spirit from which it was separated and together spend eternity with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:14-17).

If you are troubled by pain and disappointment, be encouraged by what is to come. Wait patiently for that day when God will give you a new body in which to live a new life. The difficulties we experience now will one day vanish into eternity. Take heart–the best is yet to be.

REAL LIFE BEGINS AFTER THIS LIFE.

Woodrow Kroll
www.backtothebible.in