The Brand-New You

by Max Lucado

What'all this talk about a new body? Do we change bodies? Is the new one different than this one? Will I recognize anyone? Will anyone recognize me?

"He will take these dying bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own" (Phil. 3:21 TLB).

Your body will be changed. You will not receive a different body; you will receive a renewed body. Just as God can make an oak out of a kernel or a tulip out of a bulb, he makes a "new" body out of the old one. A body without corruption. A body without weakness. A body without dishonor. A body identical to the body of Jesus.

Would you like a sneak preview of your new body? We have one by looking at the resurrected body of our Lord. After his resurrection, Jesus spent forty days in the presence of people. The resurrected Christ was not in a disembodied, purely spiritual state. On the contrary, he had a body—a touchable, visible body.

Knowing God As Our Father

Written by Dr. Charles Stanley

     Happy Father’s Day! Read The Father’s Love Letter, a      “letter from God” artfully composed with verses from scripture.

“So he said, “When you pray, say, Father, Reveal who you are. Set the world right. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.” Luke 11:2-4

God has many names that reveal various facets of His character, such as Creator, King, and Shepherd. But there’s a name that meets one of our greatest human needs in a special way: Father. Each of us was born with a deep desire to be loved unconditionally – so many of our hurts and scars come from this desire never being fully met. What security and wholeness there is in knowing that we can call God “my Father”! Scripture tells us He is “a father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5) and that He will never leave us, even if our earthly parents abandon us. (Psalm 27:10)

Where you can find real healing

A drunken husband snuck up the stairs quietly one evening as his wife was sleeping. He looked in the bathroom mirror and bandaged the bumps and bruises he’d received in a fight earlier that night. He doctored himself up, then proceeded to climb into bed, smiling at the thought that he’d pulled one over on his wife.

	For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. — Psalm 103:11-12

When morning came, he opened his eyes and there stood his wife. “You were drunk last night weren’t you!”

“No, honey. I wasn’t.”

“Well, if you weren’t, then who put all the Band-Aids on the bathroom mirror?”

Many people today are much like that husband. They look into the mirror of their lives, see their scars, and do the best they can to bandage themselves up, replacing “bad behavior” with “good behavior.” But the reality is when they do that, they’re simply putting bandages on a mirror and doing nothing to really heal the sin in their lives.