Saturday, June 3, 2017
Acts 1:11 Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.
REJOICE! CHRIST HAS ASCENDED TO RETURN IN GLORY!
After the forgiveness of sins, this is perhaps the believer's greatest comfort, for Scripture is clear as to what will happen to believers when Christ returns: "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
Imagine that! "We shall always be with the Lord." Always! Never-ending! Eternity with our God and Savior! Believers may truly rejoice that Jesus has gone into heaven before them! Not only has He gone to prepare a place in the eternal dwelling place of heaven, but He will return to take us-- you, me, and all believers-- into the eternal bliss of heaven!
No matter how bad things become on this earth, the believer may always find comfort in the fact that eternal life in heaven awaits. Christ tells us in John 14:2-3, "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also."
While He is gone from us visibly, He still is with us, for He assures us at the end of the Gospel of Matthew (28:20) "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." Until that Day when He returns visibly, Christ rules His people, believers as our Prophet, preaching the Gospel through us, as our Priest, speaking in our behalf before the Father, and as our King, protecting our faith, protecting our soul, from the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.
Until that Day, we wait with longing eyes, hoping for the day that we behold our Savior with our physical eyes, as we have already, by the grace of God, beheld Him with eyes of faith.
