Death, Time, and Heaven

Recently my wife passed away.  When you lose everything, in a way your entire life as it was, it brings a certain new perspective to life.

All the things which used to matter often no longer seem of significance.  You realize how small many prior concerns really were.   

Until we have seen death so may things feel important.  Then we realize all which matters after having lost everything in a way. 

I suppose that the eternal perspective of scripture would say that we think in very small terms.  All of life has to be viewed in perspective of eternity with God.

We Never Get Past Faith

The Christian life begins with faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Often we think now we have mastered the basics of the faith now we will move into the deeper substance.

But you see we are very forgetful and the basics of the Christian faith are everything. We do not start the Christian life by faith and continue by works. We start by faith and must continue by faith at every moment.

There is never a time when a Christian can move past the basics. We are weak. But when we are weak in Christ we are strong. If we feel we are strong we deceive ourselves and are weak.

You see all strength is found in God alone. In our weakness we can rest in grace. We were saved by grace and live each moment by grace.

If we do not see this we are blind to the depth of the law. The law is so deep and our weakness of heart so strong we are blind if we do not realize that we need grace each day.

Infinite grace flows from God. It is grace and focusing on the goodness of God by which we grow in sanctification. That is why often teaching on law and how to live well has no impact.

You see we usually know right and wrong very well and it does us little good. It is by looking to God in love that we are changed to be who we were always meant to be.

Life, Death, and Paradise

"The impression of the decisive contrast between life and death is often still so strong in our life that we have but little eye for the light which Christ's message radiates, and this is true also in regards to the transition from death to life." G. C. Berkouwer

Death is in the secular world the ultimate enemy. You can read of modern computer scientists and others hoping to escape death by in some what surviving or preserving their body to have their psyche uploaded into a computer.

In Christianity of course for those with faith death is merely a gateway to be with Jesus. To the sinner who repented on the cross Jesus said, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

You see if we see with perfect faith death is not the enemy for the Christian but merely the beginning of a new chapter of peace in the presence of God.

The sadness exists in death of course that our work is done, but it is mixed with joy. It is truly difficult to see the bible's perspective at times as our faith is weak.

But God's grace is always with us. He loved us while we were still his enemies and he knows our frame.

God of Covenants

The God of the bible is a God who freely enters into Covenants. A covenant is an agreement between two persons or multiple persons.

The reality is the are at least 5 major covenants the Christian God has entered into with man. The Christian God is often portrayed as a God who does not wish to help men.

This angry God has very little footing in the bible. It is true that God does have anger toward sin, but he has spent a large amount of time speaking to man about how the issues can be resolved.

The final covenant was of course the Father's only son Jesus (himself fully God - there is only one Christian God, but this God consists in 3 persons) entering the world to deal with the issue at great cost to himself.

The reality is that Jesus' teaching is not of much importance in comparison to his life and his death.

The life and the death of Jesus is the ultimate Christian hope, not the beautiful teachings he taught.

Life Unknown Length

There is a lot of us who say tomorrow we will get right with God. For many years I thought that I would simply push off dealing with certain issues I had about faith.

The reality of it is it is a great foolishness. A lot of people say the end of times are pretty far off.

The reality is that may or may not be true. The end of each of us may or may not be far off.

Another reality is that the decisions that are delayed become harder and hard to make. You rarely see people converted or made right before God late in their lives.

The 11th our conversion is a true experience, but it is uncommon. I believe the reality is that it become psychologically harder to accept God the longer we have rebelled against him.

Of course this is only psychological, not actual, but conversion is a psychological event where a man grasps the true of God. It is a supernatural event for sure, but truly psychological as well.