Will We See Our Loved Ones in Heaven?

 After a busy week, I'm sitting here with my Bible.  Reading. My thoughts keep going to funerals from the past year. We lose our loved ones and miss them greatly. We would love to hold them just one more time.  Watch one more football game and enjoy the victory or loss of our favorite teams together. It would be nice to walk on the beach with them and just hold hands. To hold, dance, laugh, and cry together just one more time. However, are we promised to be joined with our loved ones after this life is over?  

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection.  In other words, they did not believe in life after death. However, it was the Sadducees who asked Jesus in Luke 20:33, "In the resurrection whose wife of them is she?" They had given Jesus the example of a woman who had married seven brothers.  After the death of each, the next brother married her before she died.  Now, we know this was a trick question to trap Jesus. By the end of the week, Jesus was crucified and buried.  So, in this trick question, they received an answer with 'certain of the scribes answering said, Master, you have answered well.' (39)

Jesus' response:

“The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” (34-38 NKJ)

These verses are clear.  Again, are we promised to be joined with our loved ones after this life on earth? I don't think we are.  Oh! I can hope to see those I love dearly, but what I find in scripture does not point to a family reunion of our earthly family.  My hope is for my loved ones to have a personal relationship with God.  My prayer is for each of them to have faith in the one and only God of the universe and recognize that God 'gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever will believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.' (John 3:16) My desire is for each of my loved ones to live a life surrendered to God and serving with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Then, in the end of life on earth, just maybe I can stand beside them singing praises with the angels to God and share in a new life where there is no pain or evil but love and peace.

"Watch praying always, so you may be accounted worthy to escape all the horrors of this world to come and stand before the Son of man." (Luke 21:36) 

Location: 7QFC+8C Lyons, GA, USA

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