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Golf Cart Mafia Underboss Posts: 3944 **5/22/15 6:24 pm**

The one verse that stands out is one verse that is mis-quoted EVERY TIME you hear it.

The Bible does NOT say, "To be absent from the body IS TO BE present with the Lord."

It almost says that. And we help it along by constantly making it say that.

Reckon why we do that when we are such sticklers for precision on other things?

My wife would say, "It is better to be absent from UAB burn/trauma ICU, and to be present on River Road in Southside." But being absent from ICU does not mean you are here.

What it actually says is that it is better to be absent from the body, AND to be present with the Lord.

There is a sequence, but there is no mention of a duration.

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I have a suspicion, and that is all it is. And you might not like or agree with my suspicion, but you ought to at least have the integrity to properly quote the verse that anchors your position.

My suspicion is that the truth is actually both seemingly opposing views.

The reason I suspect it is because the next life is eternal. That means time has no meaning at all. For us, time is not only sequence of events, but length and duration.

Several years ago I was anesthetized for a minor procedure. When I awoke, I knew I was in a different room from where I had been last. My wife was seated where the door had been.

I asked her, "Are they done already?"

She said with an annoyed voice, " Yes!"

I paused then asked, "Well did they find anything?"

She said, "Bob, that is the third time you have asked me this question."

Time had continued unabated for her for about an hour. For me, it could have been two minutes or 10 weeks, I would not have discerned the difference.

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Could it be that those who have fallen asleep will all awaken at the same time and for each of them it will seem as if they had only taken a short nap?

From Adam to Bob Hodo about 6000 years went by. He missed most of them, and I missed almost all of them. But I am not fussing about not getting to live through all those years. And with the way the world is going today, if I take a short nap and awaken to rise from the grave in a fresh perfect body and the apostle Paul awakens at that same instant, I am guessing we will both be pretty tickled that it was not in this life only that we had hope in Jesus Christ, our savior.

In fact, if Jesus was not who he claimed to be, and if he does not return as he said he would, then I am just as certain as Paul that Heaven will never be my address.

And for Paul and I, the length of the nap will seem like nothing.

For us both, the first moment after resurrection will seem like it was after the briefest of naps. Even though he will have been "asleep" (same condition Christ declared of Lazarus in John 11) almost 2000 years longer than me. We could both truthfully declare, that we were first absent from the body, and then next, present with the Lord.

I wish he would come today. There's some folks I want to see after they rise from their graves.

Ventureforth

Acts-celerater Posts: 651 **5/24/15 11:08 pm**

Nature Boy Florida

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16646 **5/26/15 8:22 am**