Jesus said to her, “Your brother [Lazarus] will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. (John 11:23-26).

Standing at the graveside of someone you love as their coffin is lowered into the ground is one of the saddest experiences we can go through. However, through the death and resurrection of Jesus we have living-proof that there is life-after-death available to those who trust in Christ.  But that eternal life begins now before we die!  The Jews all believed in the future resurrection and kingdom age at the end of history...but they had not anticipated that the resurrection of Jesus would mark in the middle of history the initial beginnings of that future kingdom age. Jesus offers eternal life, newness of life, and fullness of life that begins now and that gets infinitely better beyond this life.  The resurrection power of Jesus and Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is present in us, which gives us a whole new perspective on how we perceive this world and life.  We have something to live-for-now-before-life-after-death: Jesus and His glory!

Praise God Today: "Glorious Day"

Pray Today:

• For the street team's encouragement and enabling at Chat65 as they meet people and seek to invite them into the event to hear the gospel.
• For God to be working in the hearts of those who have already heard the gospel this week at Buckstone, through the UBM outreach, the Puppet shows and Chat65.
• For Simon, Annika and Karis Flanagan: "Many of you were praying for us on Monday past as we met with the surgeon. Sorry we haven't written about it yet, the truth is that we don't know any more as to when the operation will be. The meeting was basically to let us know all the things that could go wrong during the operation! He did say the surgeon that will do the op is fully booked for the next two weeks but he will try to get us in as soon after that as possible. We were also put on the "last minute" list so if a child were unable to have their op for any reason we could be called to go in within 24 hours."