22nd March 2021
PARADISE
David Abankwah
And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in PARADISE.”
-Luke 23:43 | NKJV
If you miss hell/Hades you can’t never Paradise. Hell/Hades, Paradise, New Jerusalem and the lake of fire, are four different places which many people often use interchangeably. Paradise is not heaven where God stays or New Jerusalem. Paradise is a temporal place for saints who have slept (Biblical meaning for saints who have died physical death). At first the Old Testament (OT) saints who had slept were once in ABRAHAM’S BOSOM in the underworld where a gulf of fix differentiated them from the souls of sinners in Hades/Hell. When Jesus Christ was narrating the story of the rich man and Lazarus, He hinted that Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom and not that Lazarus was in Paradise (Luke 16:22-23).
This was because Paradise was not yet created for the saints to go there because Jesus Christ had not yet died. No OT saint qualified to enter there because all of them had sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. The percentage of all the so-called saints who came before Jesus Christ, was not yet up to 30%. If Jesus Christ had not shed His blood to redeem the OT saints or had not saved the rest of the souls of sinners by His three days crusade in Hell/Hades, all of them would have perished and would not have had everlasting life. That is why after Jesus Christ died, the grave of the saints were opened and they went to Paradise revealing themselves to the people.
They were now having the righteousness of God qualifying them for the temporal place reserved for all saints. But before that, Jesus Christ had already taken the soul of the malefactor whom He promised to remember in His kingdom to Paradise first before the others. The first person to be in Paradise was the malefactor at the right hand side of Jesus Christ on the cross. For a fact, the saying of Jesus Christ is true. He said, ‘The first shall be the last and the last shall be the first.’ How come a malefactor in the New Testament could surpass Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Prophet Samuel, John the Baptist (the last Prophet of the Old Testament) etc to be the first person in Paradise?
This really confirms that a baby Christian (30%) is greater than the saints in the Old Testament because of the blood of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist was graded as the person with the highest percentage in the Old Testament by Jesus Christ because he was led by the spirit of Elijah or I can say he was the reincarnation of Elijah. Even Paradise as a temporal place reserved for saints took the blood of Jesus Christ for the Old Testament saints to attain a 30% mark before they were relocated from Abraham’s bosom, then how much more percentage of holiness does God require from saints that can qualify them to enter into the permanent place of New Jerusalem?
•| Prayer Diary |•
Lift up prayers for the strength of God to work out your salvation to the percentage that God wants you so after you have slept, you can make it to Paradise in the name of Jesus Christ.
Quote
The first person to be in Paradise is the malefactor Jesus Christ promised to remember in His kingdom on the cross
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© 2021 David Abankwah
David Abankwah 