HELIUM BALLOONS!

Helium is a chemical element; it has symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is the lowest among all the elements, and it does not have a melting point at standard pressures. Wikipedia

Symbol: He

The image is of the sun because helium gets its name from ‘helios’, the Greek word for the sun. Helium was detected in the sun by its spectral lines many years before it was found on Earth.

Our precious friends got two Helium balloons, 7 & 5 to mark my husband's 75th birthday! I anchored them by the strings to a chair and they looked grand, fully inflated, standing against the ceiling in our lounge room!

As the days passed, the balloons began to get deflated gradually. They did not seem as shiny and they began to descend towards the floor. 

1)  Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit are like Helium balloons!

Our spiritual life is upward bound.

 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8:9-11

HE Lives In yoU and Me!

 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:1-3

2)  If we don't constantly and diligently feed on the word of GOD and drink of the Holy Spirit, we will be like those balloons that deflate gradually and descend towards the floor!

 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.
Ephesians 5:18-21

 3)  If we expire and die in CHRIST, our spirit and soul will leave the body to be with the LORD, like the Helium released to go upward. The body is then lifeless and useless and has to be disposed of, like the deflated empty balloon that falls to the ground!

Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

4)  If there is no attachment downward, the Helium balloon will automatically soar upward! 

 And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
Luke 24:50-51

After the LORD JESUS finished His mission on earth, He ascended to heaven in His resurrected body.

At the appearing of the LORD JESUS again in the skies, the believers who are walking with the LORD on earth, will also be 'caught up'. That will be similar to the Helium balloon rising up high in the air! We will be 'caught up' spirit, soul and body, upward in the skies! Our bodies will change into celestial bodies in the twinkling of the eye.

Those who had already died in CHRIST will also be taken up with their bodies changed into a glorious body!

 "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Matthew 24:29-31

 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:51-58

Therefore, knowing our eternal destination, 

may we live our lives with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, 

serving the LORD with joy!

GOD BLESS YOU!!