May 13, 2024
Thousands of books and movies have been written about immortality. Man has been in a relentless quest to live forever, but every human effort fails.
But not with God.
DEATH THAT BRINGS LIFE
From the moment of our birth, a spiral of death begins. Cells live and die. Each cell in your body carries in its DNA the exact number of times it will replicate, and then it stops. That’s why our hair loses color, our skin wrinkles, and our physical body ultimately stops working.
If life consisted of only the physical, we would be doomed to a short life. But we are more. We have a spirit and a soul that live beyond the grave.
Paul writes of his near-death experiences, but he speaks of them in a most unusual and triumphant way.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)
Those who have trusted Christ as their Savior and Lord have received a priceless, eternal gift. The Spirit of God comes to live in them. He is God. Therefore, He is life. All that God is resides in the true believer. That Christian may not choose to experience all of God, He possesses, but he can have all he wants.
Those who reject God, reject eternal life. They exist beyond the grave, but it is eternal death. Continually separated from the life of God.
GETTING BETTER DAILY
What crushes an ordinary man has the opposite effect on a man filled with God’s Spirit. God's life rises in him, utterly commensurate with the need. Although physical death may work in his mortal body, his inner man is renewed and strengthened day by day. As his earthly suit fails, he is being mightily prepared for eternity. At some God-determined point (and not before), God translates him from this life to the next. There is no interruption of life.
During this death-to-life season, something amazing happens. If he relies upon Christ, those around him see the reality of God's life in him and through him. The possibilities of a God-infused life are brilliantly seen. Even though he may suffer physically, he thrives spiritually and advances the kingdom of God in the process.
This is why Paul shouted with a grand climax in Romans 8:38-39.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are more than conquerors through Christ!
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