A Word From Casey

Facing the Future with Joy and Aplomb Because I am going through a serious illness, I find that whether I am exercising at the YMCA, or shopping at the store, or doing something else, I frequently think about life and death issues. I expectantly pray for healing of my body now, but I also know that someday Jesus will call me, and everyone else, home. Not only do I reflect on my own death, but at times I reflect on the fact that everyone I see must also cross that chasm.   Everyone I see on a day at the gym faces their own death in some future moment. This is quite a thought. It tends to make me pray for everyone. Death is a certain trial that we must all face. No one can avoid it, but mostly we do avoid thinking about it, because, we think, “what good would it do?” Actually it might do us some good. For most of us our own death is a “biggie.” It is huge, major… “a real bummer” as some in my generation might say. For those who believe that death is ceasing to exist---it th

Get Free At Last I am going to be writing in the coming weeks about a path all of us walk down—the path between life and death. Today I want to focus on the free gift of not being afraid of death, a gift which Jesus Christ freely offers to all those who will receive it. In Hebrews 2: 14-15 we read, “Therefore, since the children have flesh and blood, He (Jesus) too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” This passage says that the Eternal Word of God, God’s Son Jesus, took on a human nature, including death, 1. To destroy the one who holds the power of death (the devil) and 2. To free those enslaved to the fear of death! Contrary to what some people may think, death is not a part of God’s good creation.   God made a world without death. Hebrews says the devil “holds the power of death.” Death is an enemy.   In fact

For All The Saints On some Sundays when one of us is not feeling well or I am starting a new medicine, my wife Vicky and I worship at home instead of at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church. This past Sunday, as my doctor had just put me on something new, we did just that. When we worship at home, one of the things we like the most is singing hymns together. We sang many hymns, but only one of them brought tears to both our eyes. It is the hymn, “For All the Saints.” The hymn was written by an Anglican priest and was first printed in 1864. It was a processional hymn, meaning it was the first hymn that would be sung at a   Sunday worship as the choir and pastors marched in. The song was in a collection of hymns which could be used on All Saints Day, the Day when many Christians remember all “the dead in Christ,” those who have died united to Christ and are now in His blessed presence. I believe the letter to the Hebrews speaks of those faithful departed   when it says we are “surro