A different view on death and life II ...

Friday, Jan 22, 2010. We need to talk about God's invitation to life. We have already started to discuss the basic idea of the bible that human life on this earth can be spiritually dead and spiritually living. The gospel message is inviting us to take part in the life which God gives. It is called eternal life. We are not speaking about our physical life, but about another dimension of this world. But keep in mind that this spiritual dimension is strongly linked with our physiological world - God is the almighty creator of both of them and he is active in both of them all the time.

This point with death and life might be unclear to us. But it was quite clear to Jesus. Luke reports an event, where Jesus uses the argument: 59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9: 59-60) There is a lot written about this story, the framework of how burials took place that time - that perhaps the father of this guy still lived and he referred to his family duties. But my point here is that Jesus uses this “image” of being “dead” in the sense that someone does not know God and is not a part of the agenda and kingdom of the Lord.

For me it is crucial, what this agenda of the Lord is. The content of the life with Jesus is the key point. Compared to what he calls life, all other things are really dead. Imagine someone who does not know true love. Or imagine someone who does not know love at all. I think that everyone in this world knows some love. We all long for relationships, want to live with partners, want to be loved and appreciated. We all know some kind of love. But do we know this love of the Lord? Do we know how he is? His love is unconditional. His love is completely trustworthy and true. His love is reliable. You can count on him - he is there. He will not let you down. His love is deeper and wider than our love is.

Jesus invites every human on this planet to come to his love. He invites everyone of us to join the kingdom of God. It is an invitation to faith in Jesus. In him God has forgiven all sins, all cruelty, all theft, all murder. In him we find the life the bible is talking about again and again. This invitation can easily be accepted. Just go into prayer and tell him: “God! Come into my life. Forgive my sins. Take me and everything I have into your hand. Come, Lord!” And then go and join a church, become part of a community of people who believe.

When we come to faith, we come to life. It is like a newborn baby. We live, but we cannot do too much immediately. Faith starts a process of growth. Not every Christian has understood the depth of the message. Not every action carried out by Christians would be in the spirit of the Lord. We all fail in many things. But we have life in our heart, which has been given by the Lord. We are his children and as humans who started to live with the Lord we will experience his love. We are being transformed by him. Step by step he leads us. Step by step his life completely takes over. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

... more texts