GodReflection:

I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. – Jesus (Revelation 1:18)

On two occasions I was present to witness the exact moment when life made its exit from a diseased body. One was my son and the other was my dad. On both occasions all those years ago, within the pain of loss I could hear the Holy promise they would live forever.

In the reality of our present existence, I would venture to say that it doesn’t take much faith to believe in life or death. Frankly, not a lot of faith is required on my part to believe that I am alive. Nor is there a need for great faith or a world-renowned doc to determine if I am dead. A pulse check will do the trick.

However, within the values of The Holy, pulse does not determine if I live or die. Rather than faith in our pulse, real faith—tough faith—is to believe that Jesus is alive. Only that belief allows us to see the reality of life through the lens of the historic Jesus. Some thought he was dead. I believe he is alive.

I wasn’t present at the resurrection. I did not witness the ascension. For reasons I will not go into at this point, I believe both the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth happened. I believe that same alive Jesus will return to earth at a point in future history to gather us—his disciples—and escort us into life on a new earth with a new heaven. The confidence that I live now and will also live forever is the fact He is alive.

Therefore, I want the decisions I make on earth while I am alive to be rooted in the reality of His being alive. I am now more than alive. I am alive in Him. My missionary mentor—the apostle Paul—explains how this works. Let’s read slowly his description of alive:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:4-10).

What does it mean for us to believe Jesus is alive? And what does that have to do with the way we live now and the assurance we will live forever? Here is what I think.

God is rich in mercy. Mercy defines his nature. That is who He is. We stand in need. We are lacking. We are deficient. That is who we are. As children of Adam and Eve we participate in the sin offence against God. We too lost our holiness in the fall and from birth our very first act of disobedience stained our perfection. So, we start to die. The fact is their sin killed me. It starts to make me dead to God. In that state daily death, end of life death, and eternal death is my only future.

But then God acts. God’s grace raised me to life. I am saved. I am saved because in trust I surrender my life to Jesus. That allows me to reside each day and forever as a ‘made alive’ person with Jesus.

I begin to live it now, but I so look forward to the next reality when I will be forever alive. I will experience the full impact of Jesus’ rich grace and know as I have never known before just how kind God is.

His grace is available to me through faith in Jesus that makes it possible to be alive forever. To be alive through grace is a complete and total gift of God. It is the best gift that one can receive.  It is not for sale. Satan couldn’t buy it from Jesus in the desert. Nor can I do enough for God or perform enough goodness to purchase it from Him.

What a Promise—to live now and forever. Wow! To live as a new creation in Jesus—brand new—I stand witness as a piece of God’s handiwork. I have a holy job description. My name is written by God at the top of the assignment he selected specifically for me.

That makes me AND YOU a designed piece of God’s handiwork with a special assignment given at the time Jesus made us alive.  We give witness to the handiwork of God each time we execute a good work from our assignment sheet. Pretty special, don’t you think?

We live. We are alive. We get to work with God while we live on earth. The best part is that it is only the beginning of an eternal relationship that will last forever. A relationship richer than our human mind can comprehend.

How about it, let’s live now and forever. I look forward to eternity with you. To Live Now and Forever—Wow—What A Promise.

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells

A GodReflection on To Live Now and Forever—Wow—What A Promise.

Gary@GodReflectionBlog.com

Gary@GreatCities.org  

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