There Is Just No Reason...

1 Corinthians 15:19 New International Version (NIV)

19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Romans 8:24-25 English Standard Version (ESV)

24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

John 14:19 English Standard Version (ESV)

19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

John 5:24English Standard Version (ESV)

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

...to pity a Christian.

I Want to Go To Heaven But I Don't Want to Die

Virgilio Tojetti (Italian, 1851-1901), The Bee Sting (1898)

1 Corinthians 15:55-57

New International Version (NIV)

55 “Where, O death, is your victory?

    Where, O death, is your sting?”[a]

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tonight a yellow jacket came in through the slider door and landed in my hair.  I felt it land first, freaked out, and shook it out of my hair onto my computer keyboard.  My husband took care of it for me;  (Yes, men are ever so useful in killing bugs.) but I'm still a little freaked out.  Bees I get, but yellow jackets not so much.  In fact I'd like to know WHAT GOOD ARE YELLOW JACKETS ANYWAY?  I've been caught in one of their swarms and so has the young man who lives in my house but doesn't want to be blogged about; and thankfully, not allergic, we have lived to tell about it.  

Well, my yellow jacket visitor, you've got me thinking about stings, especially the sting of death; and how Jesus, a little like my husband, swooped in to rescue me from it.  The prospect of death will always be a little scary.  I'm one of those people from the old gospel song, "Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die."  Still I know because Jesus died, I will also share in his death, but, better still, I will also share in his resurrection.  

Alison Krauss & The Cox Family

"Everybody Wants to Go To Heaven But Nobody Wants to Die"