Without This Hope

Without This Hope

we symbolize

In pictures

of a cross

Our faith would be

a painted guise

Of damnation

and dross

Without This Hope mortality would suffer without cause

Death would be our destiny without Hope through the cross

Without This Hope in our Lord each touch, each job done well

Would be a steppingstone toward a brink of endless hell

Without this hope

Of saving grace

What comfort

Could there be?

To know there is

No resting-place

For all eternity

Without This Hope

No joy could thrive

How futile

Every plea

If Jesus Christ

Did not forgive

And set the

Sinner free

© Janet Martin

I know I've shared this song before but its one of my all-time favorites.

  

 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.  Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 

 “O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”

 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Cor. 15: 50-58