April, 2002 "Eternal Life"

Happy Resurrection and Happy Spring!  New life is budding forth in the natural realm in which we live.  It is a wonderful reminder of the New Life in Christ that is available to believers and to all the world.  Isn’t God good to give us a visual example in earthly things of the continually renewing grace and life that is our in Christ?  His mercies are truly new every morning.

Last month I wrote about the simplicity of the gospel message that Jesus came to example and accomplish while on this earth.

I think that is beautiful.  There is one, single purpose for the cross…Jesus came to seek and save the lost.  And the love of God, that Jesus bestowed upon us at the cross was so liberal and bountiful that we cannot even contain the fullness of the blessings He brought.

Ephesians 4 makes it pretty clear – there is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Jesus is the one and only way to this Father God who has such love for us that He gave His one and only Son so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life.

This month I want to talk about how amazing it is to me that this simple message has the power of everlasting life.  Eternity is wrapped up in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and yet He is outside of  time and is eternal and all of eternity is embodied in Him.  He stepped into time into our natural realm to become a man so that He might pay the price of our sin in this earth.  When He fulfilled all of the law and the requirements and penalty for sin was paid, He stepped back into eternity.  However, He did not step away from us, but He invited us to step into eternity with Him and receive that same eternal life and become part of Him and His Body for all ages to come.  As we receive Him, we become part of eternity even as we are still living in the arena of time – in the now.

If you have ever tried to grasp the concept of eternity, I am sure that you, like me, get “mind-boggled.” Eternity is defined by the dictionary as time without beginning or end; the state or quality of being eternal; the timeless state following death; the afterlife, immortality.

I once heard eternity described in this way.  Picture a little sparrow.  In his beak he carries one grain of sand to the moon and deposits it and then flies back to retrieve another, carries it to the moon and deposits it, and then he does this with another and another and another and another….  He continues to do this until every grain of sand and every speck of soil and dirt that composes the earth – right to the core – is carried and deposited onto the moon.  If you can conceive at all of how long that takes then you will have grasped only the first moment of eternity.  Wow!!!

The dictionary defines eternal as:  being without beginning or end; existing outside of time.  Infinite, continuing without interruption; perpetual; forever true or changeless.  It defines Eternal (with a capital “E”) as: God.

Isn’t it interesting that we humans so desire to live forever that we freeze our bodies, clone our genes, store our sperm and eggs and come up with doctrines of religion that allow us to reincarnate ourselves in life cycle after life cycle until we “get it right,”  and on and on it goes.  That pretty much says it, doesn’t it.  We desire to be as god or to be a god.  But even the dictionary says that Eternal IS God.

There is only One Way to enter Eternity and have Life…and that is through Jesus Christ.  In John 11:25 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live (forever), even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  That is the question.  Do you believe this?

That is the good news if you believe and receive.  That is what “gospel” means – good news. 

Well, there is good news and bad news.  I have shared the good news first.  The bad news is that just as there is eternal life and grace for those who receive, there is eternal death and punishment for those who do not believe. 

2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 says, “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.  He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of His power on the day He comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.  This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.”

In Matthew 25:46 Jesus speaks of those who will go away to eternal punishment, and the righteous who will go to eternal life.

The decision and the choice we must make has to happen while we are still living in the realm of time – in this earth.  For it is appointed to man once to die and then the judgment.  (Hebrews 9:27)  In other words, we do not get a second chance.  After we die and look the Lord in the face, we cannot say: “Oops, I guess you are real after all, I change my mind and want to be with you.”  We must decide here and now!

What is your decision?  What is your answer to the question that Jesus asked?  Do you believe this?

As you ponder this question, you are balanced on the precipice of eternity.  Won’t you choose eternal life?  Won’t you choose Jesus Christ?  Won’t you choose the love of our Father God?  Won’t you choose to have the Holy Spirit come and live in Your heart and give you that new and eternal life?

 Just tell Him so…..

L.O.V.E.,
Patty

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