January 5.
Don’t Get Discouraged

Romans 8:23

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

You remember how you used to be young and had a lot of vigor. You used to move fast, run up hills, climb steps, jump and hang and swim and play. But now you walk to your car and you’re out of breath. There was a time you didn’t need eyeglasses for anything; now you have to have eyeglasses to find your eyeglasses. There used to be a time, you’d get up anytime of day or night. Now you want to sleep as long as you can. Time has a way of changing things. Just looking at us will tell us that we didn’t come here to stay. Hair starts changing colors on our head or it will fall out, and teeth start leaving one by one. The heart starts skipping in its beat. When you get my age and older, you will discover that you’ve got more friends over there than you have here.

The text says he’s coming and I like that because when he comes, he’ll do some stuff for us. As a matter of fact, when Jesus got up himself, he had a new body. Luke 24:39 tells us Jesus could eat and be seen and heard by others. So we won’t be only spirit when we get up; we are going to have a body. We will not only be recognized by those gone on, but we will also know them. Once we get rid of this body, we’ll be able to praise Him endlessly. And when we bow down before the King and start praising Him, when we rise up we’ll think of something else that He did for us. We’ll bow down again. And when we rise up, we’ll think of something else that the Lord did for us. We’ll bow down again, and that will go on and on because if you’re honest with yourself now, with our fevered minds, when you start thinking about what God has already done for you. You can’t help but to shout and praise him everyday.