dying and rising daily

1 Corinthians 15:29-41

           There is a great of talk about us dying and rising. Perhpas you get the impression that it is only when our bodies die that we are born again into new life with Christ. While I certainly beleive that, I have a broader thought on the subject.

          Lent is a time when we embraced dying to ourselves. But our whole lives are a process of dying and rising. On the simplest scale we could look at something like a new word of the day calendar. Every day we die to a our old self and become slightly better, more educated. That is the simplest. But any way in which we choose to better ourselves and make our relationship with God better is a dying and rising.

           If we really beleive Jesus died for us we can easily find a way to open new vistas to ourselves for new growth and dying. Just something to think about.

Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you—a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord. If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised,
‘Let us eat and drink,
   for tomorrow we die.’
Do not be deceived:
‘Bad company ruins good morals.’
Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.