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I had a new-found appreciation for the particular chapter I read this morning.

Isn't it funny how that always seems to happen?

I'm just a littlehappy about it, too.  I think it's amazing how God continues to use the exact same words to teach you something new over and over again.  Kinda like His mercies... they're completely new every. single. day. ;-)

So, this time it was 1 Corinthians 15 - the chapter all about resurrection. It seemed to me while reading it through, that Paul was correcting misunderstandings about Christ's Resurrection and one day, our resurrections too.  Clarifying that Christ DID break the bonds of death over human life when He rose from the grave Himself, and that we will, "when the trumpet sounds", rise to a new life and a new body.  Both of which will be better than we can ever imagine.

I like to think of it as the Victory chapter.  It brings hope, being a reminder of the life we've been given, the life we will have with Jesus in Heaven, and the life we've been saved from having to live.  A life where the word hope doesn't reside.  A reminder that we die everyday for a reason; a very great and good reason!  "And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?  I dies every day - I mean that, brothers - just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.  If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained?  If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!'" (I love Paul's sarcasm =P)

This is the best part...
"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit ht imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.'  'Where, O death is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?'  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in he Lord is not in vain."

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