Then!

 St. Paul declared that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immorality. Then the saying that is written will come true, Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Then. Then the saying that is written will come true.

Then it will be a reality that we will no longer be subject to the weakness of our perishable bodies. But until that time we are subject to weakness, disease, injuries, confusion, forgetfulness, disabilities, and your basic aches and pains.

This waiting for a future period called "then" for all of the results of the fall into sin to disappear is a wearisome waiting. In fact, the longer that a person lives on the earth the more wearisome it gets. A young person rarely thinks about this. Yet, as we age we become personally aware that we too are going to go the way of all men. What shall we do?

When the world confronts the reality of our fallen human condition it sees the answer in living every moment like it is your last. We are encouraged to take advantage of the "now." "Live for today. Live like there’s no tomorrow."

This is good advice in one sense. Jesus did say, don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it’s own. Yet, he said this to Christians who relied on the grace and goodness of God to provide for all of our needs and who know what awaits "tomorrow." When the people of our world give us the advice to live for today, they do so not because we have nothing to worry about today or tomorrow, but because the people of the world believe that there is no tomorrow. There is only TODAY.

But God has revealed a very different way of looking at the present and the future. Instead of the present being the best part of our human existence, God reveals that this doesn’t have to be the case. The Lord who made the heavens and earth has provided for a new a better tomorrow.

God is the source of all life. Those who are separated from God are by nature "dead in trespasses and sins." What this means is that although they inhale and exhale, have moments when their hearts are beating slowly and times when their hearts are racing, and have brain neurons making microscopic electronic connections resulting in various thoughts and movements, a person is not really alive unless they are connected to God.

Yet, you have been reconciled and connected to God through faith in Jesus Christ. You have heard the message that the Son of God, who would never have died because he was sinless, came to do that very thing, die. He came to take what separated us from God, and taking that to suffer the physical consequences that all mortals must endure, and the eternal separation from God that is the tomorrow for those who continue to reject his attempts to reconnect. Jesus endured this for us. And right NOW we do have God’s promise in Christ that you are no longer dead but alive. And this life is eternal. You are forgiven. You are at peace with the Lord. You have his promise, as Jesus said, "whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

There is a THEN and it begins in your heart right NOW.