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Tag: eternal life

  • Slightly Obsessed #152: He Is; We Are

    Slightly Obsessed #152: He Is; We Are

     

    And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

    – Exodus 3:14

     

    The car snakes past the other drivers as we jockey for position in the fast lane.

    We accelerate as we leave the city limits, find our places, and settle in for the drive. I give the Jeep its head, and it glides along the river road as if by its own accord.

    The old Jeep has made the trip many times. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it’s as eager to get home as I am.

    My mind wanders along familiar roads, mentally sorting the day’s events into “done” and “in progress” folders. Like most Americans, I have been sucked into a vortex of busyness that consumes my days.

    I am a slave to time. Too often, I get so wrapped up in doing that I forget to be. I need to still my brain. I need time with the Eternal One.

    When I first began to search for God years ago, my main stumbling block to Christianity was the doctrine of the Trinity. I couldn’t accept Jesus as God. The idea of three persons in one Godhead was beyond my comprehension.

    Actually, it still is. But as I began to read the Bible for myself, I was amazed at the power emanating from the pages. As I studied it, I discovered for myself why we worship the three persons of the Trinity as one God.

    One of the many Scriptures that convinced me of Jesus’ deity was John 8:58.

    John describes a day the scribes and Pharisees confronted Jesus as He taught in the Temple in Jerusalem. They accused him of being demon-possessed when He promised eternal life to those who believe in Him. No mere man, they correctly maintained, could offer eternity to humanity.

    Jesus’ response floored me: “Before Abraham was born, I am.”

    I AM was the name God used for Himself as He spoke to Moses at the burning bush, as described in Exodus 3:14. Jesus applied this title to Himself. He declared Himself to be God, the Word expressed in physical form.

    I AM is the perpetual state of being. It transcends time; it has no beginning or end. I AM is to be, always. God doesn’t live forever, in the way we think of the passage of time. Time is His creation. He exists independently of time.

    He lives.

    In His incarnation, the Word entered time to rescue us. He has called us to pass through time and space in earthly bodies as He did, living toward eternity. He used the time given Him on this earth to walk out the plan of His Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit. His incarnation has granted us the chance to live forever.

    Because He is, we are.

    Eternal.

  • Slightly Obsessed #092: The Author of Life

    Slightly Obsessed #092: The Author of Life

     

    You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.

    – Acts 3:15

    The call came one evening, while we were at work.

    We rushed to the nursing home and found her in her room. Her eyes were open but fixed on some spot beyond us. Her brow was furrowed in an anxious frown. The skin on her legs was mottled. That told me her organs were shutting down.

    The nurse said her heartbeat was still strong. With my mother, it could be no other way.

    She loved life, and she fought hard for it to the end, through a series of strokes that took a devastating toll on her body. She battled for five long years against increasing disability and pain.

    Now, through the night, her body began its journey home, ravaged beyond man’s ability to bring her back. Someone brought us chairs and stale coffee for the vigil. We softly sang her favorite hymns around her bed. We read her favorite Bible verses to her, the ones she loved over the years. We held her hand, stroked her clammy forehead, prayed together, and told her she would soon see the face of the Lord she loved so much.

    It was mid-morning when her breathing became erratic. Not in a frantic way, but gently, reluctantly, the sighs of someone who needs to leave but doesn’t want to say goodbye. Then, as we huddled around her in a gray room under a gray May sky, she left us.

    We grieved our loss. We rejoiced she had been united with the Author of Life.

    It was the day I saw firsthand that life doesn’t end. It returns to the God who gave it.

    God isn’t a distant benefactor caring for us on our trip through this realm. He created the processes that maintain life. He gives us every breath. It is His infinite knowledge and imagination that crafted the world we live in.

    He wrote the book on life.

    On that awful day outside Jerusalem when Jesus allowed His creation to kill Him, He was writing a new chapter for us. His death ushered in an alternate ending for every person who has walked this earth. We don’t have to live in hopelessness. We are not defeated, after all, if we choose life.

    Because of His sacrifice and resurrection, that night in the nursing home wasn’t the end for my beloved mom. It was a change of address, a move into the presence of the one who made her, loved her, and promised those who love Him will never die.

     

    Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’

    – John 11:25-26

  • Slightly Obsessed #059: Beyond the Grave

    Slightly Obsessed #059: Beyond the Grave

     

    For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

    – 2 Corinthians 5:1

    He pulled into the nursing home parking lot with a heavy heart.

    He opened the mechanical door and it engaged, swinging wide. Inside, the usual nursing home smells met him as he made his way to his mother’s darkened room. The curtains were pulled, and a deep silence shut out the sounds in the hall.

    She was nearly ninety-one years old. The wreath of white hair framing her frail face belied her fierce nature and the long battle she had waged to live. She appeared to be sleeping, but her gnarled fingers picked at her sweater as if to straighten it out across her swollen belly.

    He stood for a moment, debating whether to awaken her. He decided against it, prayed a quiet prayer over her, and tiptoed out of the room.

    Less than an hour later, he received the call she was dead.

    Nearly two weeks ago, we buried my mother-in-law, remembering her life with tears and reminded we never know what hour will be our last.

    Most of us struggle to come to terms with our mortality. Some of us dread suffering. Others are tormented by the fear there is nothing beyond the grave.

    The Apostle Paul was a tentmaker by trade. It was common for the nomadic people of the Middle East to live in tents at the time the New Testament was penned. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul uses the imagery of tents to help us understand the nature of the physical body and immortality.

    Our bodies, Paul tells us, are tents, like those portable dwellings we take with us on trips. They are built for travel, so they are lightweight—at the expense of durability. They offer some shelter against the elements, but they can’t protect us against all threats.

    We live in tents. But we are not the tent. We’re just using the shelter until we return home.

    From the outside, the tent is the only thing we see. When we move on, we leave the shell behind. It can be burned or buried or preserved, but it is only what’s left of the flimsy dwelling we used while we were here. If I came across an empty tent in one of our beautiful national parks, I would just assume the owner was elsewhere.

    Not dead; just absent.

    Living in a tent is not a comfortable existence. Paul acknowledged “while we are in this tent we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.” (2 Corinthians 5:4) Because we have never seen anything other than the outward shell, we question and fear what lies beyond our physical bodies.

    He is; we are.

    Christ’s death and resurrection redeemed those who love Him from judgment, assuring us that death is not annihilation but a temporary separation. He is the great and eternal I AM, and we are made eternal in His image.

    While you dwell in this tent, be encouraged that you are more than what is seen. In fact, you are.

     

    The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

    – 1 Corinthians 15:26