To Live Forever

So right now I am working hard at preparing for the Bible Study we do for every season of Lent.  It is going to be in a couple of weeks on March 19th, after worship at 11:00am.  The subject that we are going to explore is the Christian belief of Eternal Life.  What does that mean for Christians living right now and also about what that means at the end of life.  And more importantly, how do we receive Eternal Life.
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And I want to dig deep into this subject, and I am going to use some of this writing for March 19th, but I want to share it with you all right now!

Eternal life is something that is appealing to most human beings because we have some reservation in facing our “possible” inevitable death.  SO, an answer to our fears of death is “eternal life.”  But what exactly does that mean?  To live forever seems like an outlandish concept.  But people have tried.

When I was younger, I learned about the story of Ponce de Leon of Spain who was in search of the Fountain of Youth when he was exploring the area in which we know is called Florida.  According to legend, Ponce de Leon searched for the Fountain of Youth most of his life and he believed that it must be hidden somewhere in Florida.  Hmm…. Maybe that is why subconsciously many of us, as we get older, look at Florida to be our retirement home.

When I first heard of this story, when I was very young, I thought that it was stupid!  I thought that it was so foolish for a guy to waste his entire life just to search for something that couldn’t be found, or possibly never exist. 

In my young life I knew that life is futile.  I have already understood the concept of death at a young age when I witnessed family members passing away.  But in my early life I also learned not to be scared of death or even try to find ways of avoiding it.  Because maybe it is through the help of the church, or parents, or other influences in my young life, that instead of trying to find way to avoid death, we should be spending our precious life on earth, living it. 

It was sad to me to think that Ponce de Leon just ruined his life to try to find something because of his fear of death.  What he should have been doing is living life to its full potential. 
I think this is important for Christians to realize as well.  Eternal life isn’t given to us because we fear death or are afraid of hell or need to find ways to cope with death.  Eternal life is given to Christians because it is a gift from God.  That is as simple as it gets.  There is no ulterior motive, or nothing about Eternal life that helps us avoid death or the fear of it.  Eternal life is a gift.  It is the possibility to even think of eternal life as another stage in living.  Our bodies go through amazing changes from life in the womb, to birth, to growth, to puberty, to eventual adulthood, to aging and menopause, and then what?  Well imagine eternal life is the stage of life, like a caterpillar going in a cocoon in order to emerge from the cocoon into a new being, a butterfly.   

Don’t spend your life worrying about death or spend your life to try to find way to avoid death.  I do not think God intends us to live in such a way.  He created our human bodies in a way that it goes through stages of being.  Every stage we go through not only takes on new physical shape, but also emotional, psychological, and even spiritual change.  It is just how God created us.  And just because what we see as death or dying might in in God’s eyes, the sequence needed to enter into a new stage of being. 

Now, I will have  a lot more to say about this and what the Bible has to say about this and other things about the subject of Eternal life on March 19th after worship for the Lenten Bible Study on 11:00am.  So don’t forget to come to worship at 10:00am and stick around afterwards.  There is still a lot to learn and discover!

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