Fear is a prison we are held captive in by choice, fear is the enemy of faith.
This from a sermon Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached about being free of fear.
" No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, nor has one yet heard about the realm of the resurrected and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence.
Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she is to the goal?
That life really only begins when it ends here on earth, that all here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up-that is for the young and the old alike to think about.
Why are we so afraid when we think about death?
Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it.
Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's word.
Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in Him. Death is mild, death is sweet, it beckons us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting Kingdom of peace.
How do we know that dying is so dreadful?
Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?
Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous that we can transform death."
1 Corinthians 15:50-58 HCSB
Brothers, I tell you this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. Listen! I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal must be clothed with immortality. When this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? Now 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 dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
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