David Phillips writes:

What would you say if Jesus said to you:  “Today you will be with me in paradise”?

Would you be shocked?  Delighted?  Worried?  Or would you say:  “Not yet Lord, please”?

Last week Lesley and I went to visit an old friend whose husband had died a few months ago.  In the course of our time with her she asked if it was wrong to pray for the dead, because, she said, that she prayed with her husband a lot over the four years he’d been ill and she felt that when she prayed, she still felt she was praying with him and for him.

I said that it depended on what you prayed but thought it wasn’t wrong to pray for their continued peace and joy in the Lord and their continued blessing.  She said it’s the Communion of Saints isn’t it?  Which is a line from the Apostles Creed. 

It is a very biblical thing to believe that we are untied with our loved ones who have died in the faith especially as we know we have God’s Holy Spirit given to both us and them, who guarantees our inheritance.  We are all one in Christ Jesus.  So yes, pray with and for your loved ones if you want, it’s not wrong.

What I am going to do is read the first part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians from verse 3 to 14….

This is a wonderful and amazing scripture, but there isn’t space to comment on all there is so I will just list some of the things that God has done in and through Jesus.

·      He has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

·      He has chosen us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.

·      In love He predestined us to be adopted as His children through Jesus Christ.

·      In Jesus we have redemption and forgiveness.

·      He made known the mystery of His will which He purposed in Christ.  To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head Jesus Christ.

St Paul goes on to say that both those early Christians and those who have come after, including us today, have all been included in Christ in order that we might bring praise and glory to God.

And having believed Paul tells us that we are marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.

It is the Father who planned and fore ordained all of this, it’s Jesus, the Son who has won for us salvation, forgiveness and eternal life, it’s the Holy Spirit who brings us all the spiritual blessings that we have been blessed with and it’s the same Holy Spirit who applies the work of Christ to our hearts and gradually, if we let Him, makes us more like Jesus.

I don’t believe that you lose the Holy Spirit, but I think our ears can be deaf to His leading because we are listening to the wrong things and I am not talking about music.  Whatever attracts your eye and your heart, whether it’s food, booze, drugs or a thousand other things that can lead you astray, it will seem that the Holy Spirit isn’t speaking to you, He is, you are just not listening.

Reverend David Phillips