live like you were dying...not

  

 

well my dear ones,

 

 

A few years ago,

I sat through a study called

“Live Like You Were Dying.”

 

I did get some good points out of it, like:

 

Speak sweeter. 

Tell our loved ones

that they ARE loved;

tell them now; don’t wait.

 

Love deeper. 

While we can’t control

the length of our life,

we can control the depth of it;

so love deeply for as long as we’re here.

 

However, the author’s point that we,

Western Civilization,

particularly in the USA,

are a death-denying culture

left me pondering something, namely,

“How did people in the 1^st Century live?”

 

And also,

“Is there anyone in heaven

 who got there without dying?”

 

Current science is now on board with the fact

that the universe had a definite beginning.

My college roommate was the son of the man

who discovered the residual background radiation

lending credence to the Big Bang Theory.

 

So, we are now caught up to where

the author of Genesis was thousands of years ago,

“In the beginning,

 God created the heavens and the earth. “

(Genesis 1:1)

 

“But, dave, what about the whole 6 days versus

14 billion years thing?”

 

Great question; thanks for asking! *lol*

 

The 2010 movie, The Genesis Code,

has a nice synopsis;

you should be able to see it here for free:

 

http://www.tubeplus.me/player/542623/The_Genesis_Code/

 

So, 6 days is 6 days

from God’s viewpoint, not ours; cool.

 

OK, so now that we see the Bible and science

as more in harmony with one another than not,

do we see in the Biblical account

anyone who never died?

 

Actually, there are two; Enoch was one.

 

“And Enoch walked with God; and he was not,

 for God took him.”  (Genesis 5:24)

 

The other was the Hebrew prophet, Elijah,

who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.

(2^nd Kings 2 has a full account)

 

So, while we joke about “death and taxes,”

it looks like the only absolute certainty

out of those two is taxes.  =)

 

Going back to my first question,

the people in the 1^st Century

at the time of the writing of the New Testament

(which, along with the Jewish Tanakh actually became the foundation for Western Civilization),

and especially in the 2^nd Century,

well, while a bunch of them got martyred,

they weren’t really living like they were dying,

they were pretty much living life

to the fullest extent possible;

they lived like the return of Jesus

to usher in God’s kingdom on earth

could occur at any time.

And they were more concerned with

spreading the good news

(i.e. the resurrection of Jesus,

 the reconciliation of God to humankind

 through Messiah)

than they were with worrying about

whether or not they lived or died.

 

*shrugs*

 

I’m no biblical scholar; *lol*

my masters degree is in electromagnetic fields

(and everything I know about that,

 if I didn’t already believe in God,

 would have been enough to convince me

 that our universe was designed;

 the perfection of the dance of the

 electromagnetic spectrum

 as it plays out in the universe

 defies random chance);

but I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover

a half dozen times

(even if nothing else,

 as the foundation of modern Western

 Civilization, it’s good to have a

 grasp of it, to know how things

 came to be; and a foundation in Roman Law

 and English Common Law added to that

 would serve to make you a pretty

 well-read person; if nothing else

 you could entertain people at parties

 with your mastery of once-commonly-known-

 but-not-so-much-anymore facts =>).

 

What I’ve gathered from that

could be summed up in these

words of Jesus recorded in

the gospel account of the apostle John:

 

“Most assuredly, I say to you,

 he who hears My word

 and believes in Him who sent Me

 has everlasting life,

 and shall not come into judgment,

 but has passed from death into life.”

 

 --- John 5:24 (New King James Version)

 

So, as I read that,

and taking the easy example of myself,

having heard the words of Jesus,

and believing that God sent him,

and trusting in the finished work

of the cross

(“tetelesti,” uttered from the cross,

 is a Greek word meaning “paid in full.”

 While Jesus likely uttered it in Hebrew,

 John recorded it in his gospel account

 in Greek with a phrase that

 would be immediately recognized as

 something an accountant of that time

 would stamp on your bill to show

 that you owed no more...and we don’t),

I have now passed beyond judgment;

I now have eternal life;

It’s not something I will get;
I already have it,

which means I’m already living it.

Hence, I don’t need to

“live like I’m dying”

because I’m too busy

living in the promises of God.

 

So, as long as I walk this earth,

I will strive to live out

what it says on the bracelet

my friend, Debbie, gave me,

“Love God – Love people –

 Love is a verb”

 

Yes, this can be a tough and stressful

time of the year for many people;

so please bear in mind

that love IS a verb,

and the way God chooses to

inject love into the world

is through you!

So let it out.

 

 

Have a great week! =)

 

grace, peace, and love to you,

dave