April 20, 2009
Still in His Hand
Today is the one year anniversary of my church. Our preacher observed that for being only a year old some of us sure look a little weathered. While we’ve averaged over a hundred in weekly attendance, we’ve also had our losses. Since the beginning of the year four of our members have passed away…two of them only yesterday. Our Birthday celebration is bitter sweet but Jesus comforts us when He says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:28 NIV
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Gail;
-----Sometimes I wonder how cruel I may appear to others, because I never cease to be amazed at how mankind’s experience with death has failed to effect our shallower perception of it. With the exception of one man, every person that has ever lived, except for this little batch of us living today, is dead. And we shall be shortly. It is what we were made to do. It is as natural, normal, and acceptable as eating and sleeping. Admittedly, it rather alters our interpersonal relationships when it happens. Those who remain after a loved one dies no longer has that person’s activity and communications in their ongoing experiences. But also, the person who has died finds himself acting and expressing in an environment and social circle completely new to him. Life has not ended for him, it has only changed.
-----And this change is what Jesus Christ addressed with His life, death, and resurrection. He forged the character of the church from death to be about life after death. That is, to have life after death we must die before we actually die. We must admit, both spiritually and physically, the change that punctuates every life. Spiritually we must make the decision to distance ourselves from the twist in man’s nature that rebellion is and assimilate the true nature God created in the perfect man that obedience is. This is the spiritual death to carnality we must accept to become born again into the spiritual life of godliness before we experience our natural physical death. If we fail to make this spiritual death about separation from rebellion to God before physical death, then we will have spiritual death as separation from obedience to God after physical death . Therefore the message of the church is about dying daily today so that death tomorrow will culminate in life. When spiritual life with God is chosen before physical death, the remainder of our natural lives are cast together with others who await the hope of the new City we experience only after physical death. And we await that hope together, holding each other tightly by encouraging one another to endure the temporary troubles of a twisted environment to be ended by physical death, and building up one another in our new life that is today only a bit of the untwisted, perfect environment of eternal life we will have then.
-----So amidst this sea of death floats the small lifeboat of souls that is the church born by Christ. And although the sea is frightening, the souls who leave the lifeboat through physical death have achieved the main purpose for which God made that small boat. They have passed into eternal security and perfect joy after having brief shelter from the sea. For them should not be the lament, rather it should be for us who must continue to weather the sea’s storms.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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