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Click on the masthead (above) to view/download the complete newsletter
by Rita Bennett
On April 9th of this year, I received an email from a woman named Lauren. She said, "I have a bit of a hang-up on death. However, I know that I am saved and will live eternally with my Lord and Savior." Lauren continued,
"I was told something helpful yesterday by a business friend of mine: 'When we die, we will not be alone because Christ's omnipresence is still with us. Death is a peaceful experience and not anything to be afraid of.'
"Well, today I went to google.com and typed the words 'Pictures of Heaven' and your web site came up. As I was looking at your pictures, tears streamed down my face. How wonderfully you have depicted what I have read from the Bible.
"So to make this long story short, thank you for following your calling with beautiful pictures and beautiful words. May God bless you even more to allow a bigger 'glimpse' of Heaven to shine from your web site. You turned words into pictures!" Lauren.
The Answer
We Christian believers have just completed the season of remembering Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Yet perhaps you, as with Lauren, still have a "bit of a hang-up on death."
Jesus tried to tell His best friends what was soon going to happen to Him after His death. To Lazarus's sister, Mary, He said,
"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25a). His words of hope were two-fold, for the sisters Mary and Martha, but also for you and me millennia later.
The sisters were about to have the surprise of their lives when they witnessed the resurrection of their brother. It happened when Jesus, who "is the resurrection," commanded, "Lazarus come forth." If Jesus had not first said "Lazarus," He could have raised all the cemeteries in Jerusalem!
Lazarus's death experience was a great witness in the community. It was common knowledge that he had been dead four days.
Of course, the "religious leaders" did not like seeing the resurrected and healed Lazarus walking around, praising Jesus. It was then that they did their "religious thing" plotting to kill Lazarus (John 12:10). Reason? Too many of the people were putting their faith in Jesus, the Christ, due to this great miracle.
These "religious unbelievers" eventually gave up their plan to destroy Lazarus in order to concentrate on their major plot to destroy Jesus. As for Lazarus, he would eventually die a second time, perhaps from old age.
There are a number of people in the Bible who died and came back. Today we may call this a near-death experience, since they died but did not stay dead. However, Jesus is the first person in the Bible who died and came back from the dead, never to die again ...
He now has a resurrected, glorified body. It has the kind of molecular structure that can flow right through walls. How do I know that? It is shown twice in John, chapter 20. On the eve of the resurrection, the Apostles are gathered together in a special hideout for fear of arrest. Their doors were closed and locked. Jesus is not a ghost but a physical being who no longer needed a door for entrance (vs. 19). Eight days later He does the same thing. Here Christ showed His physical wounds in His hands and side to "doubting" Thomas, who immediately becomes such a Believer that he cries out, "My Lord and my God" (vs. 26-28). This is the greatest verbal confession to the divinity of Christ of anyone ever recorded in the Bible.
First Corinthians 15 has been called the "resurrection chapter" of the Bible. In the beginning of this chapter, the apostle Paul tells how many people were eyewitnesses of Jesus following His resurrection, and before His ascension. "And He [Jesus] was seen by Peter, then of the twelve: After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ... After that, He was seen by James [half-brother to Jesus]; then of all the Apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also, as one born out of due time" (vs. 5-8).
All those Paul previously listed were actual eyewitnesses, but Paul's own experience was different. Here he, who had destroyed Christians, is referring to his own conversion some years after Jesus' ascension, when the Lord dramatically confronted Paul in a vision (Acts 9:1-31). Some call Paul the 13th apostle because of his strong witness to his faith, extensive missionary travels, and for writing a large portion of the New Testament.
One of the greatest witnesses for Jesus' resurrection being real, is that all of His Apostles continued in His ministry and '' out of the '" willingly died as martyrs. The twelfth was the Apostle John who remained a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, where he wrote the Gospel of John, three Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation. He too suffered willingly for his faith before dying as a man full of years.
When you add up these eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection you have at least five hundred and thirteen people. Following that came the 3,000 who believed in Jesus Christ on the Day of Pentecost. They did not see Jesus physically as He had ascended, but the power of the Holy Spirit brought the presence of Jesus into the spirits of everyone who believed in Him. So that made 3,513 Believers.
Now that was over two-thousand years ago. Think of how many have been added to that list to this date. Only God knows how many. How wonderful it is that your life can be a witness to draw others to join the original host of resurrection witnesses.
I hope you, dear Reader, have put your trust in Jesus Christ who is, "The Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6). If you have, you will find He takes away fear of death. You never have to have even a little bit of a hang-up about death. Rejoice. "He is risen!"
THE EMOTIONALLY FREE COURSE IN AFRICA
Those who read our quarterly newsletter regularly will remember articles by our Virginia "Emotionally Free" teacher, Gail Patton. In 1999, along with the missionary organization "Sharing of Ministries Abroad," and with Christian Renewal's blessing, Gail began to take the modified E.F. Course to Tanzania, East Africa. She spearheaded the project of having the E.F. syllabus translated into the Kiswahili language.
Now, mid-April, she with her team returned from Kenya, South Africa where new ground for ministry has been seeded. I am excited that Gail will be co-teaching with us at the Edmonds Emotionally Free Course this July. Intercessors Sheila Todd and Sue Wheeler will be joining her for our Emotionally Free National event. God must be expecting great healing events and we are too! Please support us in your prayers and gifts, and plan to join us this June and July!
Rita Bennett
CRA President
www.EmotionallyFree.org
The material published in the CRA Newsletter is protected by copyright. Please contact Rita Bennett for permission to use it. Copyright © 2006 by Rita Bennett.
