Rejoice! – The Saturday Morning Post by Pastor Ted Stahl
Luke 10: 17 – 20: “And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”
Good morning! Wake up and rejoice that your name is written in Heaven! Some times we forget where our final destination is. We forget verses like 2 Corinthians 5:6-8: “Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
And what about what Jesus said to one of the dieing thieves on the cross next to him? Luke 23:39-43 tells us: “And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
Remember what Jesus promised us: eternal life. When we close our eyes here in death, they open up in Heaven. We have eternal/everlasting life. We need to rejoice in the fact that when we received Jesus as our own personal Saviour, we received the Assurance that our names were written down in Heaven. We have eternal life.
Rejoice!
Why? Because of what God’s Word says…
In John 10:27-30: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”
And in John 6:37-40: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Rejoice!
Others should see it in your face, your rejoicing. Many times I’ve had people come up to me and ask why do you smile all the time? I just tell them because I have Jesus in my heart. It’s been hard these past few weeks to smile. This week’s blog is for me. I needed to be reminded, just like everyone else, to rejoice.
SO REJOICE!
Peace. (Psalm 138)
Posted in Devotions by Phil Erickson with 4 comments.
I believe that if more Christians rejoiced in their salvation and assurance of Heaven, I would spend less time explaining that I am not suicidal for saying that I can’t wait to die. When Heaven is that real and that close, how could you not want to rejoice?
Amen! We should be rejoicing. All week I have had the song the choir sang in my head ” One Day Jesus Will Call My Name” and it almost makes me explode with excitement and anticipation. Ed and I love to travel. When we plan a vacation we do our homework and study all about our destination, what we are going to see and do etc. Sometimes we are looking forward to seeing friends and family that we haven’t seen for a while. We also have a “to do” list of things that we need to do to get ready for our departure like getting the oil changed, tires checked, bills paid, packing, and finally as the day approaches we say goodbye to friends and family and we are on our way. Rejoicing most definately should be on our all our “to do” lists while anticipating our journey into everlasting life and to see the face of Jesus and spend eternity with him. People all around us should see what we have and it should make them want to have it too. We shouldn’t neglect to tell everybody we know about Jesus before we go.
Thank You Bro. Stahl. I needed that too.
Amen to that!