O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

1 Corinthians 15:54-56 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 56The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is probably the most difficult devotional thought I’ve written. I usually take time to analyze verses through the uses of a lexicon but today is different. It is the day after our thirteen-year-old granddaughter lost her life in an ATV accident. She is absent from the body but present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). I have tears as I write this. Questions flood my mind, the foremost of which is “Why did God let this happen?” The answer may never come in this lifetime, but we do have the promises in the passage above. Jesus came for a purpose—to reconcile man to God—to end sin and death once and for all. Our separation from Elisia is only temporary. Jesus is coming back to this earth and when He does, He will bring with Him those believers who have died and raise up those of us who still remain. What a reunion! Death will be swallowed up in victory. Until then we pray for strength to carry on. There is much for us to do.

Lord, I pray, You know my heart and the sorrow there is in it. I pray that You will fill the emptiness that has been left behind with the fruit of what you are doing in me.