A different view on death and life ...

Tuesday, Jan 19, 2010. On the weekend a colleague of mine was robbed. People broke into his house and took the new laptop and several other valuables. Also, neighbors of ours had thieves breaking onto their house at 4am in the night on the same weekend. The police chased them through the gardens of our neighborhood. Two weeks ago other colleagues were robbed during daytime on the road in Brussels. They have been stolen purse and passports. The robbers were chased some blocks, but could escape. My office was robbed three month ago, with my laptop back being stolen - including a whole collection of important documents, passports and credit cards. We cannot say that robbery or theft would be an ancient phenomenon. It is very active today. It seems that there are hordes of people running around and trying to steal all they can get. Welcome in the 21st century and the civilized world!

The bible has a special view on things like robbery or theft. It calls it “death”. People who steal and rob others, have no part in the eternal God. They do not know him, his love, his trustworthiness, his goodness, his dedication and gentleness. The bible calls it “life”, if we are connected to God through the Holy Spirit. It calls it death if we are not connected to him. There are clear signs of this “being dead in sins”. Taking things which belong to other people is one of the signs of death. The apostle John writes even more about it:

“14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.” (1 John 3: 14-15)

It is not only the theft or robbery. Even our ignorance can show how far away from the eternal God we are. If we just see ourselves and not the others. If we just take as much as we can for us, but do not think about a reasonable life for our fellow humans - in the office next door or somewhere around the globe.

Of course, there is physical life and physical death which is extremely important to us. We are beings who are physical and we have a strong will to survive. But we also know that our life here on earth is limited. There are only some years to live here, some things to gain, at the end everything will be gone and we will pass it on to our children or our contemporaries. But there is more to life and death than this. God is there, and he is eternal. He wants us to come to him, to take part in his eternal life. He deeply loves us. Though he does not love sin, theft, ignorance and murder. He wants us to come to life - to the life which comes from him, which is a life beyond our physical limits. It is a life of love, of trust, of help and reliability. Come to life, come to him. We will need to talk more about this invitation … [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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