1 Corinthians 15 (6)

Pray Psalm 90.12-15.
So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Return, O LORD!
How long?
And have compassion on Your servants.
Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us,
The years in which we have seen evil.

Sing Psalm 90.12-15.
(Landas: My Faith Has Found a Resting Place)
LORD, teach us all our days to note that wisdom may be ours.
Return, O LORD, have pity on those servants who are Yours.
Each morning let Your love appear that we for joy may sing.
And make us glad for every day You us affliction bring.

Read 1 Corinthians 15.1-58; meditate on verse 50-58.

Prepare
1. How shall believers in Christ be changed?

2. What must we do until then?

Meditation
A day is coming when at last we shall lay aside our mortal flesh and be clothed with immortality. This, too, is the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we shall see Him as He is. Then death will be destroyed and the grave will be overcome. Then all corruption will cease, and we will be incorruptible because of the victory Jesus has won for us in His life, death, resurrection, and reign (vv. 50-56).

With this end in view, we must be diligent to attend to every good work for which we have been saved (Eph. 2.8-10).

All our conscious activities are exertions of energy—work. They must be done in the Lord, that is, consciously before Him and for His glory, in His strength, according to His Word, as an expression or extension of His rule, and for the demonstration of His living presence and love.

As we await the day of Christ’s return and of our being transformed, we must be “always abounding” in such work. Every moment, and everything that fills those moments, can be done in the Lord and thus bear fruit for Him. But we must be steadfast about this—set, fixed, determined, unwavering, conscious and conscientious—so that we engage and perform all our work in the Lord.

Prayer is the vehicle that can sustain such an outlook. Planning is where abundant labors begin. And we must be immovable, always in all things remaining on task for the Lord, so that our work may demonstrate His Presence, purpose, power, and promise.

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162.
We will all be changed—
“In a moment,
In the twinkling of an eye,
At the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15.51, 52).

God likes the blast of the trumpet.
No one can sleep through that.

One Sunday night service years ago, a visiting speaker, in ownership of a trumpeting ram’s horn, began to deliver the sermon. I’m embarrassed to admit my mind began to wander, and I was not paying proper attention to his message. When suddenly, out of nowhere, he blasted that ram’s horn and I almost levitated out of my pew. Holy cow! Most assuredly my heart was racing, but he now had my full and undivided attention!

When Jesus returns there is not a soul on this planet that will miss it. It will be impossible to overlook or sleep through. “For the trumpet will sound and the dead [and alive] will be raised” (1 Cor. 15.52).

“Incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15.52). How utterly, completely, and absolutely amazing.

There is only one entity who gets a kick out of death and that is Satan. Our enemy. He hates us and everything about us. And he enjoys the sting that we feel when a loved one dies. He rejoices at our revulsion towards our last enemy. But guess what, Satan? Death will be “swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15.54).

God has given us this victory through our LORD JESUS CHRIST.

God spoke through the prophet Joel, saying:
“Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming” (Joel 2.1).

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4.16-18).

Also encourage one another to: “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15.58).

There is much work for us to do until that Day, “so that our work may demonstrate His Presence, purpose, power, and promise.” We keep on keeping on to prove our thanks to Him for this ultimate victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And one day we will say:

“As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness” (Ps. 17.15).

Always Abounding.

For reflection
1. How can believers encourage one another with the promise of the Lord’s return?

2. Why must we seek to be always abounding in good works until then?

3. Whom will you encourage in good works today?

After having proved the resurrection of the dead, Paul urges the Corinthians to progress energetically in the ministry of the Word, in confession, in love of neighbor, in patience, and to build up the Lord’s church in every good work, and shine forth the glory of God. Tilemann Hesshus (1527-1588), Explication of 1 Corinthians 15:58

Pray Psalm 90.1-11, 16, 17.
Pray for the work God has given you for this day, that you may do it for His glory and with a view to His soon return.

Sing Psalm 90.1-11, 16, 17.
(Landas: My Faith Has Found a Resting Place)
LORD, You have been our dwelling place from generations gone.
Before the mountains came to be, before the earth was born,
before the worlds, and long before men on the earth first trod,
from everlasting long ago, O God, You are our God!

You turn men back to dust and say, “Return from whence you came!”
A thousand years are in Your sight like yesterday the same.
You sweep away our lives with ease, like grass that sprouts and dies.
Your wrath consumes us and we live dismayed amid our sighs.

You set our sins before Your face; our secret sins You know.
Our days decline in fury as we sigh to see them go.
And though we live for eighty years, yet hard and sad the time,
for soon it goes when Your great wrath consumes us in our prime.

Now let Your work to us appear; our children show Your might.
And let Your favor rest on us; show mercy in Your sight.
The work that You have given us, confirm, and to us show,
that we Your chosen path may walk and in Your precepts go.

T. M. and Susie Moore

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter, available by clicking here.