Jeri Calkins is With the Lord

For those that attend Victory Fellowship where I pastor, our beloved sister Jeri Calkins went to be with the Lord Jesus at 2:30 AM on Thursday, August 14th. Jeri had a severe physical battle for some time. She is now jumping, shouting, praising, worshipping, and learning all about a new way of life in the Presence!

Of course people have the why question when someone leaves us, and now is just not the time for me to deal with that. I’ll do that later. For now, let’s believe God for her family to be comforted and strengthened by the Lord and by trusting friends.

Jeri was a vivacious lady with a zeal and passion for Jesus. She was constantly looking for ways to give and to encourage. She has added to that legacy of giving by donating her body to medical research at Duke Medical Center! Even in her home going, her final act was a gift to help others.

We’re having a celebration service in honor of Jeri at Victory Fellowship next Friday, August 22, 2008 at 5:00 PM. If you knew Jeri, please come and honor her and encourage her family with your presence. We’ll have some praise and worship and a time of sharing together in her honor. Then afterwards, we’ll snack on some finger foods and fellowship with each other and her family.

Our home going is precious to God because we’re no longer separated from him by time and space. Please pray for Jeri’s family as they adjust to life separated from her. I’ll leave you with some thoughts from the word.

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,
if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. The Judgment Seat of Christ Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:1-9). For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better (Philippians 1:21-23).