Sleep

1Th 4:14  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

1Th 4:15  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

1Th 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

1Th 4:17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1Th 4:18  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

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Who sleeps in Jesus?

What does it mean to sleep in Jesus?

We know this isn't the ordinary sleep for just a verse later we are told this--

'That we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.' 

So those who are asleep are not alive.  Again a verse later--

'..and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain…'

The sleeping in Jesus are those who have died in Christ secure in the knowledge they will rise again to immortality when their Savior returns and calls them forth from their graves.

Yes, I keep on with this and I'm going to continue on with this because our Savior preached the gospel of His kingdom for 3 years and gave His apostles, His disciples the command to continue to preach of this gospel of the kingdom. They never stopped. They shared the news endlessly. 

Today in my particular world I know of no one personally who does not know the message of Jesus' salvation, the message of His kingdom.  I don't live in a world where the message has been kept secret. The message is has been spread widely and people have chosen to heed it or ignore it.  I have no way of knowing who in the entire world might read these blogs, but if even one person seeks the truth of our Savior, the whole truth not just the bits that serve their idea of a proper religion, I will have been blessed.

By the grace of God the truth must be told.

The truth is death is a SLEEP.

The truth is heaven is NOT filled with our loved ones.

The truth is Christ will call forth the dead from the graves upon His return.

We need to know this truth, our Savior did not die in vain.  Our Savior came to bring the good news of a future promise of a life with Him. If people already died and went on to heaven after death in the 4000 years prior to Christ's why would our Savior need to have come at all? This was said…

Act 2:29  Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.

Clearly Paul was making a point that David was dead and buried, and not living up in heaven.

There are many facts to the truth, but Satan loves to twist things to suit his purposes.  It suits his purpose to get as many people as he can to believe his lies so they are duped when it comes to Christ's truth.   When Satan impersonates Christ's return it will be to deceive people to get them to believe lies and follow him in his disguise. And these people will be among those who hear the beloved Savior tell them to get away from Him, that He never knew them.  Please Savior do NOT let us be among them! Keep us in YOUR TRUTH in ALL TRUTH even when that truth destroys beloved fables we believed to be true.

All by YOUR grace and LOVE!

Always!

In Jesus' name!