Tag Archives: eternal life

What Will You Do?

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It’s supposed to be easy to install the new operating system on my Android phone.  But when I read the instructions, I froze up, because I couldn’t understand all the special terms and acronyms.  Even knowing that OTA means “over the air” made no difference.  I felt stupid and backed away.

Too often, Christians say things like “accept Jesus by faith,” a quote from my last post, forgetting that those words might sound like secret code-talk.  People don’t understand, feel stupid and back away.  Worse, many have a distorted idea of what those words mean and back away.  If I don’t install a new operating system on my phone it’s no big deal.  But failing to “install God’s new operating system” in your soul is tragic.  It’s a life or death thing.

So, what does it mean to “accept Jesus by faith?”

Your car breaks down in the middle of Montana, shudders to a stop and emits a brackish smell.  You get out and open the hood, looking down at the engine and trying to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it.  You don’t realize it, but you only have a short time to fix it before a deadly storm blows in from the west.  You reach down and fiddle with the thingamawidget and tap on the fuse box.  Along comes a guy in a van, who stops to help.  After assessing your situation, he says,

“There is no way you are going to be able to fix that on your own.  But if you would like, I’ll be glad to take you with me into the next town.”

What do you do?  You might say, “That’s ok, I appreciate it, but I think I can get it…”  To which he replies,

“You don’t want to be out here much longer; there’s a really bad storm coming.”

You have two choices: you can continue to take care of your problem by yourself, or you can “accept his offer by faith.”  If you trust him, and truly believe he can save you from the coming storm, that he really has your best interest in mind, then you abandon your own efforts to get yourself going and surrender to whatever it is that he will do.  You climb in, and let him take over.

“Accepting Jesus by faith” is the same kind of decision.  There is something desperately broken with human life as we know it.  Most of us try one thing and another to fix it, or at least to make the best of it.  Jesus comes along and says,

“You will never get that fixed on your own.  But if you will trust Me, I’ll take you with Me and take you to the only One Who can fix what is broken.  You don’t want to stay out here, though, because before long it will be too late.”

What do you do?  If you accept His offer, you trust Him, so to speak.  Jesus then brings you to The Father (John 14:6), Who forgives you completely (Romans 8:1), receives you in a loving and sustaining way (John 1:12), and gives you His Holy Spirit to fill your soul (Acts 2:38; John 14:16).  This Spirit is life, a kind of life we cannot imagine without experiencing it, and it lasts eternally  (John 7:37-38).  It truly is a new operating system.

What will you do?

Priceless

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How much would you pay for your soul?  How much would it be worth to you to know that your soul, the essence of who you are, would come into its full potential and live forever?  How much?  If something is rare, it costs more.  Someone bought a 1962 Ferrari for $35 million!  Presumably, it was pretty rare.  How much would the Ferrari guy pay for his soul?  Souls are priceless, so rare a value cannot be determined.  How rare is your soul?  It is one of a kind.  Jesus said:

“What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

Why is any payment necessary?  Don’t we already have our souls?  Yes, but our souls are dead – separated from the Spirit of God with which they were designed to be filled and brought to life.  This separation came about as a consequence of not trusting God and turning away from Him.  Adam and Eve initiated that “death” or separation.  We continue their pattern of rebellion in each of our lives.  If you don’t pay your phone bill and they shut off your connection, your phone dies.  You can pay the bill to restore your phone to “life.”  How much would you have to pay to restore the life of God’s Spirit to your soul?  The life of your soul is priceless.  Not even the Ferrari guy would have enough to pay to restore your soul.

“No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him—” (Psalm 49:7)

No one who has ever turned from God – ever – could pay for your soul.  The only one who could ever pay enough would be someone who led a perfect life and did not owe a payment for his own soul.

Consider these words of Jesus:

“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:10b-11)

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Real Life

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Now that’s really living!  What were you doing the last time someone said that?  Eating?  Playing with grand-kids?  Water skiing?  Not everything we do in life is “really living,” right?  There are some moments in life when we feel more “alive.”  Life is full and rich, satisfying or meaningful.  So, not all life is “real life.”  If you understand how the same word, life, can be used to mean simply having a heart beat but can also mean the best vacation you ever had, then you can better understand Jesus, when He says:

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)

Jesus used the same word to mean two things:

1) All the things we hang on to in this world, believing we need them to be happy and secure.
2) The rich and full life that God intended for us to have as humans, being connected intimately and eternally with Him.

You can’t grab onto #1 and also have #2.  Holding on to #1 is a “death-grip.”  #2 is “real life.”  That is why, in the previous post, I used the video of a baby robin, screwing up his courage to fly for the first time (See: The Life You’d Die to Have).  As long as he clung to the safety and comfort of his nest, the only “life” he’d ever experienced, he could not experience the “real life” he was designed to possess – flying.

Similarly, Jesus continued:

“What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26a)

The word, soul, in that question is the same word Jesus used for “life” previously.  He used the same word in this teaching, too:

” “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25 – I’ve crossed out the word, important, since it is not in the original text.)

Real life is more than food and clothes.  The “real life” God intended for us was eternal life, the life of His Spirit within us.  So long as we maintain our “death-grip” on life as we have always known it, our “nest” of stuff that makes us feel comfortable and safe, we will never “find” the “real life” God intended, flying with His Spirit.  When we let go of life and trust Jesus, He gives us “real life.”

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

The Life You’d Die to Have

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You have been invited.  Act now and you can be rich, just like the guy in the infomercial, who’s standing in front of his new mansion, his arms around babes in bikinis, just back from a spin in his Maserati.  If you accept his invitation, you can have all that too – and more!  …Unless you read the fine print.

Jesus has a different invitation for you, but He begins with the fine print.  He invites you to deny yourself and die.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

Which invitation looks better to you?  Self indulgence or self denial?  Obviously, the “get rich quick” guy is  scamming us.  But why would anyone sign up for “losing his life to find it?”  It sounds like Jesus asks us to leave behind the life we’ve worked so hard attain, along with all the its comforts. Do we really want to let go of all that?

Before you decide, watch this:

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

 

Bubbling Up with Life

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They’d been using it for thousands of years but didn’t know how it worked – not until 150 years ago.  Talking about yeast.  Did you know it is alive?  And when it’s warm and wet, yeast grows and multiplies so fast it makes rabbits look like amateurs.  One tablespoon of yeast contains over 140 billion little yeastie guys, all ready to get started transforming your next batch of bread dough from a gooey lump of paste into a puffy, yummy wonder, all set for baking.

That’s how the Kingdom of Heaven works, too.  It grows and multiplies because it is ALIVE!  Religion is mostly dead – a bunch of strict rules and boring ritual.  But the Kingdom is alive with the Holy Spirit and growing.  It can take the gooey lump of paste that is dead humanity and gradually transform it into a growing, yummy wonder, filled with new life and all set for heaven.

But don’t take my word for it; Jesus said it first:

“He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”” (Matthew 13:33)

You don’t have to know how yeast works to make bread.  You simply mix it into your dough and wait.  The yeast does the work because it is alive.   You don’t have to know how the Holy Spirit works to be transformed by His life and become part of the Kingdom of Heaven.  You simply have to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, trust Him and surrender to Him.  He causes the Spirit to be born in your soul and bring you into eternal life.  The Spirit does the work, because He is alive.

That’s why this thing is called Fresh Bread of Life.

Quote: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Do You?

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Let’s suppose the skeptics are right and Jesus was merely a profound teacher, a man in tune with deep wisdom.  Maybe Jesus was simply a man who surpassed all others by His understanding of reality.  Given that premise, try to imagine what He meant by these teachings- literally:

““For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”” (John 11:25-26)

Okay then, literally, what did the “best teacher” mean?  Literally!   Was what He said true?  If not, why would He have had the cruelty or audacity to teach such things?  And, if they are true, then what did Jesus mean by “believe in Me?”  And the part about being the Son of God?

One last question:  Why did Jesus ask His friend, “Do you believe this?”

Do you?

Bring it On

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Maybe you have asked, “If Jesus saves, why doesn’t He save me?”   Maybe you have just lost your job or your home.  Maybe you have just received some awful news from your doctor.  Maybe you just saw your picture on the post office wall.  We find ourselves in deep trouble and call out to Jesus, “Save me!”  Sometimes He does and sometimes He does not.  Why not?

John the Baptist must have been wondering that same question.  John was a prophet who was faithfully and fearlessly serving God.  Not only that, he was Jesus’ cousin!  If Jesus had the power to break John out of jail, why didn’t He do so?  Jesus knew that John would be executed in prison and yet did nothing to free him.  Why not?  Why let John suffer and die?

it wasn’t that Jesus didn’t think John deserved it.  He told His disciples:

I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; …” (Matthew 11:11a)

But as good as John was, and as close as they were, there was something more important than John’s comfort and safety in play.  Jesus continued:

“… yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. [John the Baptist]“ (Matthew 11:11b)

The worst person who is in the Kingdom of Heaven is better than the best person who is not.  What did Jesus mean by that?

Here’s an analogy: The worst, piece of junk flip-phone that has service is better than the latest and fastest Google android mega-screen monster that does not.  Phones can be powered up and have all kinds of cool graphics and games, but it they don’t have “bars,” they are dead.  That’s because phones are designed to communicate by means of the invisible cell signal.

We humans were designed by God to communicate with Him, receiving and sending information, by means of His invisible Spirit in our souls.  Without that Spirit, even though we are physically alive, we are spiritually dead.  No “bars.”  Since Adam and Eve rebelled against God and lost “all the bars of their Spirit service,” all of their descendants have been born dead, disconnected from the Spirit – even John the Baptist.  Jesus’ primary mission was to give us the Spirit and bring us back to life.   Everything else was secondary.  He said,

“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10b)

Jesus must have known that leaving John in prison would advance the cause of giving people real life in the Spirit.  That eternal goal was far more important than John’s immediate comfort or freedom.  If John could have known how his suffering would be used in that cause, he would have accepted it willingly.  Joyfully.

I am convinced that God did not waste John’s suffering and that He does not waste your suffering either.  I am convinced that if we knew how God uses our suffering to bring people to full life, we would be glad to be used by Him.  It’s not that we want to suffer.  We urgently pray and ask God to rescue us from it.  But as we pray to our Savior and King, we line ourselves up with what He knows is best.  “Thy will be done.  Bring it on!”

Choose: Life or Life

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If we are honest, none of us know how we would respond to a violent assault by terrorists who challenge us to “convert or die.”  We may think we know, but we don’t really know.  People have done astonishing things when threatened with death as an alternative.  But Jesus knew that the desperate urge to preserve our physical life is driven by a distorted understanding of reality.  He said:

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39)

This saying of Jesus is the most quoted in the New Testament.  It is a “Truth” that sets us free, free from the death grip of physical life.  Clinging to physical life at all costs is a sure loser.  No one gets out physically alive.  Finding eternal life in Christ is a sure winner.  No one can take that away.

Here’s how Jim Elliott, a man who was murdered for following Jesus, said it:  

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

 

The Same God

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The woman of my fantasies whispered in my ear. I had spent the night at the college infirmary and she woke me with the most seductive voice.  “It’s time to wake up, Honey.”  But when I opened my eyes, all my adolescent hopes were dashed.  I’m pretty sure that old lady knew what she was doing to us.  She could have sold alarm clocks with that voice…   But when you only hear a voice and can’t see the face, it’s easy to get the wrong idea.

That’s why so many people have screwy ideas about God – even people written about in the Old Testament.  Because they could not see God, they imagined all sorts of distorted things about Him.  But David – King David – had the right idea.  God said he was a man “after His own heart.”  David knew God.

Question is, was David’s God the same God portrayed in the New Testament?  You know how the 23rd Psalm starts out: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…”  But take a closer look at how David ended that Psalm:

“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

David’s God was the God of goodness and love, the God Who kept track of His people (He followed them…  probably not yet on Twitter) and cared for them faithfully.  This concept of God is nothing like how pagan gods were imagined to be.  It sounds right to us because it is a New Testament idea, but in David’s day it was fairly radical stuff.  Jesus reaffirmed the goodness and faithfulness of God in all His teachings.

But David’s final thought, the hope of living “in the house of the Lord forever,” is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches for those whose souls are dead, disconnected from God’s Spirit.  Without the redeeming work of Jesus, without being forgiven by God and reborn by His Spirit, no one can “live in the house of the Lord forever.”  Jesus made this clear when He spoke with Nicodemus:

“In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”  (John 3:3)

“Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:5-6)

Without being brought to life by God’s Spirit, our souls are dead and cannot “live in the house of the Lord forever.”  God had given David a peek under the tent to glimpse a mystery that would not be revealed until the coming of Jesus.  It  was the mystery of how dead souls are brought to eternal life.  Here’s the third verse of Psalm 23:

“He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:3)

Here’s how Jesus said it:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth…” (John 16:13a)

Maybe you have wondered if the Old Testament God is the same as the God described in the New Testament.  He is.  Scroll down through the previous posts.  Adam knew Him; Job knew Him 3500 years or more ago; Abraham knew Him; David knew Him; Isaiah knew Him and Jesus knew Him.  He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

Nobody’s Perfect, But…

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Kim Jong-un cannot qualify for Heaven. But then, neither could Mother Teresa – not on her own steam. Nobody can live up to Heaven’s standard for entry. The bar is set way too high. Jesus made that clear:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

If golf was how you got into Heaven, Tiger wouldn’t. You must be perfect. How perfect? As perfect as the Heavenly Father. Sounds harsh, but when you think it over, if any imperfection was allowed in Heaven, pretty soon it wouldn’t be Heaven. In time, it would become Detroit. That is why Jesus told the people that their righteousness would have to be much better than the Pharisees, whose sole focus in life was to obey all the commands of Scripture. You have to be perfect.

Reflect for a moment on the fact that we live with standards for perfection all the time. If you dial even one wrong number out of ten, your call cannot be connected to the right phone. If you mess up just one letter or number of a password, you cannot get on to a secure WiFi. You must be perfect, or you cannot get in. Same thing with Heaven. Jesus said so.

But Paul Harvey had something to say, too: “You need to know the rest of the story.” The “rest of the story” about the word, perfect, is that, in the original language of Matthew, it also meant “complete.” Jesus came to “complete” us by giving us His Spirit. We were created by God and designed by Him to have the Spirit within us, guiding us. Without that Spirit, there is no way for any human to be perfect. Jesus was saying, in order to enter Heaven, you must have the Spirit of God living in you. How does one get the Spirit? Jesus said, “Trust Me, … and I will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, The Spirit of Truth.”

Maybe you are thinking, “But I have already trusted Jesus, and already have His Spirit, but still I am imperfect. What now?” Don’t panic, perfection is coming. Not here, not now, but guaranteed. Jesus said:

“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:40)