He is not God of the dead but of the living.
The resurrection from the dead is something different from and greater than simply more of the life we have now. We need to know the Scriptures and the power of God in order to understand this. If we fail to understand it we risk having an inadequate hope that can't motivate us to keep moving toward the Kingdom.
For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame
the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.
In order to know the Scriptures and the power of God we need the Holy Spirit. He teaches us how to read the Scriptures as he himself inspired the authors to write them. He gives us direct experience of the power of God in the Church and in the gifts he gives. The Spirit also reminds us of what Jesus says and guides us into all truth. He leads us beyond our preconceptions about what sort of heaven would make us happy and shows us the heaven for which we are created.
We can experience in a small way what worship around the throne of heaven is like. We learn to worship in Spirit and truth.
The Holy Spirit keeps us centered in the core truth of our faith.
He saved us and called us to a holy life,
not according to our works
but according to his own design
and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began,
but now made manifest
through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus,
who destroyed death and brought life and immortality
to light through the Gospel
By showing us more and more what we have received and connecting us directly to the life and immortality for which we hope the Holy Spirit allows us to stand firm and bear our share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that he himself provides. He himself is the bridge between not yet and now.
On this account I am suffering these things;
but I am not ashamed,
for I know him in whom I have believed
and am confident that he is able to guard
what has been entrusted to me until that day.
How do we embrace the Holy Spirit in our lives? Let us lift up our eyes to him. With all the attentiveness we can offer let us simply be aware of and welcome his presence in our midst.
As the eyes of a maid
are on the hands of her mistress,
So are our eyes on the LORD, our God,
till he have pity on us.
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