Imagine yourself in the future – one hundred years from now. Yes, you are dead. But you still exist. Who are you now?

Really, your soul cannot be destroyed. You, in some form, will continue to exist. Do you know people were not meant to die? Death was added on. All the self-aware creatures were meant to exist forever. But we are on Plan B. Plan A: live forever. Plan B: we die and move on to something else.

We have little information about the next state. But we have at least one historical example. A guy named Lazarus who was dead four days and was brought back by Jesus. He was no worse for wear it seemed. His sisters were glad to have him back after the shock wore off.

It’s good to have a friend like Jesus. But he himself had a bit of a time convincing his close friends when he came back from the dead. They looked at him like he was a ghost. He asked for some food. Ghosts don’t eat food, right?

Anyway, back to the question: who are you? Should you be included in the next big thing? God has a long range plan to have the earth like he wanted it: filled with good people doing good things.

Do you think God will be thwarted on his plan? He won’t. Are you in or out?

Not ready? Who is? We have to be changed, yeah, no one is ready, really. Start with forgiveness. Get it from God; give it to others. Jesus came to change us from the inside. Do we act like our first parents? Do we do wrong and believe it will somehow do us good?

Jesus will forgive your sins if you ask him. But he wants to do more than that. Jesus came to deal with that bigger issue: Sin. That was a big prediction about the Messiah, that he would deal with sin in a final way. Remember how he said to some, “Go, and sin no more.” How could he expect this change in behavior?

Let’s look at what happened to Jesus. This good man was convicted by a kangaroo court at midnight. He was turned over to a Roman governor who was coerced into setting him up to die. This was a dreadful punishment for the enemies of Rome, a humiliating kind of torture death.

Roman soldiers carried out the whole business with grewsome enthusiasm. It took each type of evil found in men, hate, indifference, coercion, and just plain evil. Jesus forced the issue when he appeared in Jerusalem and insisted that he was the only hope for people.

They asked him who he thought he was. He quoted their book that he was the person God will appoint as the ruler over everyone and everything. He was that Son of Man.

Religion met politics that day and killed the best man to ever walk the earth. One reason this happened is so we could see what sin does to men. This power of sin that ruined people was what he came to destroy.

God cannot be thwarted in his plan for men. The triumphant return of Jesus back from the dead convinced his friends that God could do anything.

So here we are, later. There is no new plan. The power of God works in us and begins to make us ready for his great future. Hope past the grave. Life changing power, right here, right now.

Are you in God’s plan? Who are you? You can be changed. You can become good through God’s power in you. But he does not coerce. He never has, and never will. Only the willing become the sons and daughters he always wanted people to be.

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