Preparing a place for you...

Preparing a place for you...

By Bobby Schuller, Hour of Power Pastor

"The dead shall live; their bodies shall rise."

-Isaiah 26:19a

I want to ask you a question. Why was it that Jesus was not just simply resurrected in Spirit? This is an important question. Why was Jesus not just resurrected in his Spirit?

Imagine, for example, that Jesus, after three days, comes out of the tomb in Spirit, goes to his disciples, and says, "You see, my children, I am alive." You see him point to his body and say, "See, that body doesn't matter. That body is just a shell. It doesn't matter; it's just laying there and it's just a heap of dust. What really matters is that you can see that, in Spirit, I am alive, and now I am going to heaven in my Spirit to prepare a place for your Spirit."

However, Jesus didn't say that. Many agnostics in Jesus' day wanted that to be the case because they hated the body. They believed the body was evil, and it was a prison, the source of all sin and awfulness. But hear me: Christians hated that Gnostics' view because Christians, especially in the first century, and Jesus, himself, valued the body. Your body is sacred.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for helping me to understand that you're not only concerned with my spirit, but my body as well. Amen.