32C22.   2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14.   A foreign force that taken control over Jerusalem demanded of Maccabee family that they worship in their religion or be tortured and killed.  The Maccabee family had such a profoundly deep faith in their God that they were willing to accept martyrdom rather than be unfaithful.  Only our God gives the life that is eternal resurrection; everything else is death.

Luke 20:27-38.  The Pharisees believed in life after death; whereas the Sadducees rejected it.  The Sadducees attempted to prove to Jesus that life after death was impossible.  Jesus responded that life in heaven is totally different than life on earth.  In heaven God, since he is the only true life-giving force, is so overwhelmingly dominant that all other relationships are subsumed into and under our relationship with God.  “Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead”  “can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God.”  Because sin rejects God, the only source of the life is joyful, sin created the death that is the termination of the goodness of life because without God there is no resurrection, no eternal life.  Without God a person can only continue on in the hopeless eternal emptiness that is hell, forced to live on, drifting aimlessly in nothingness and feeling utter desolation.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5.  “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.”  “He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.”  To remain faithful to our loving God we must daily strive to live in his love; otherwise, alone we will succumb to this world’s challenges to our faith.