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Let’s pray together: Lord, let our souls rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Father, we pray for Greece, Belarus, the Congo, Romania, Qatar and the church in these countries as well as the lost. Today Father care for the caregivers and give them strength. Be with the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the prisoner. Show those in power how to lead with humility and diligence. May the peace of the Lord Christ go with us: wherever He may send us; may You guide us through the wilderness: protect us through the storm; may You bring us home rejoicing: at the wonders You have shown us; may You bring us home rejoicing once again into our doors. Amen Meditation The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1Corinthians 15:26 Just because we know something doesn’t mean we KNOW something. Information can be useless to move us. Watch this video of tourists unable to connect their knowledge that this bridge is safe to overcome their fears of falling. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1300596/People-terrified-cross-glass-bridge-China.html These people are not fools, but they are letting their fear control them. Many years ago on vacation, we took the kids up the Currituck lighthouse in North Carolina. It’s so tall you can perceive the curvature of the earth. The antique stairs are made of cast iron. Now I am fully aware that the park service must inspect those stairs regularly but a retired marine and myself hung on to the doorway at the top and we BOTH almost cried when we realized we’d have to circulate halfway around the open top to get to the down stairs and then actually get back down those see-through treads to the ground. My knowledge was no assistance in the face of such unreasoning terror. The kids, by the way, loved it. As Christians, we know that God loves us. We know that when we die we will go to heaven and by all accounts heaven will be really good. And since every human being will die, what is our problem? The problem is rooted in the very depths of out humanity and our sin. We are afraid of the dark, of being alone, of losing control. Death encompasses all these things. It is primal and connects us to fears of ghosts and demons. Make no mistake, death is our enemy, while Jesus cried in sorrow with the sisters, but when he got to Lazarus’ tomb it says, Jesus was “greatly distressed”, this may be better understood to be angry or to snort like an angry bull. He saw the toll of death and was filled with rage at the destruction wrought by it. When God made us, we were not destined for death but for life. Death is a corruption of God’s perfect world. 1Corinthisn 15:21-26 says that the last enemy to be defeated will be death itself or as it says in the paraphrase The Message: There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won’t let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death! Death is going to be overturned. We know this, but do we KNOW it? Let us take any unreasoning terror, deep-rooted fears, and lay them before our Good Father. He desires to bring us truth and love, ask Him for help to KNOW the truth; light is more powerful than darkness, good is greater than evil and life will one day swallow up death…forever! Do you believe?