But we are citizens of heaven,
where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.
He will take our weak mortal bodies
and change them into glorious bodies like his own,
using the same power
with which he will bring everything under his control.
…I focus on this one thing:
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
I press on to reach the end of the race
and receive the heavenly prize for which God,
through Christ Jesus,
is calling us.
…everything else is worthless
when compared with the infinite value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…
…God’s way of making us right with himself
depends on faith.
I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power
that raised him from the dead…
…Live clean, innocent lives as children of God,
shining like bright lights
in a world full of crooked and perverse people.
Hold firmly to the word of life…
…God elevated him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Praise the LORD!
Let all that I am praise the LORD.
I will praise the LORD as long as I live.
I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.
Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;
there is no help for you there.
When they breathe their last,
they return to the earth,
and all their plans die with them.
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel
as their helper,
whose hope is in the LORD their God.
Psalm 146:1-5
…Work hard to show the results of your salvation,
obeying God with deep reverence and fear.
For God is working in you,
giving you the desire and the power
to do what pleases him.
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Once again a message came to me from the Lord:
“Son of man, give your people this message:
‘When I bring an army against a country,
the people of that land choose one of their own to be a watchman.
When the watchman sees the enemy coming,
he sounds the alarm to warn the people.
Then if those who hear the alarm refuse to take action,
it is their own fault if they die.
They heard the alarm but ignored it,
so the responsibility is theirs.
If they had listened to the warning,
they could have saved their lives.
But if the watchman sees the enemy coming
and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people,
he is responsible for their captivity.
They will die in their sins,
but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths.’
Ezekiel 33:1-6
But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret.
We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!
It will happen in a moment,
in the blink of an eye,
when the last trumpet is blown.
For when the trumpet sounds,
those who have died will be raised to live forever.
And we who are living will also be transformed.
For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die;
our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.
1 Corinthians 14:51-53
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout,
with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trumpet call of God.
First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves.
Then, together with them,
we who are still alive and remain on the earth
will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Then we will be with the Lord forever.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
Blessings of understanding God’s message
