In Psalm 23 David begins with “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”. There are many ideas and interpretations of that phrase but mostly it has to do with your Spiritual life not your physical one. The Lord provides physical food and the ability to do your job and get the things which you need, but the last four words do not mean that you will be wealthy. It means that you won’t be in need of anything beyond His will to provide it for you. God’s will overcomes all obstacles from disease and famine to relationships between Himself and you or your family.
That doesn’t mean that He overrules your choice or your right to choose because God doesn’t force His will on us. But He does provide for us in every way and in every situation. There are times when we don’t see His hand in our lives and we feel as if He has left us to fend for ourselves but God is still close to you and me. We are never truly alone if we are Christians. If you have rejected Jesus as your Savior, God is still close by but He isn’t as close as He could be in your life. Particularly if He knows that you can do something in His Kingdom that nobody else can do. God will keep touching your life until you finally realize that you need Him as your Savior.
God has loved mankind since the dawn of Creation and before. We will never know the depth of His love for us until we are in His Presence and even then it may be too much to take in, even with our glorified bodies. Jesus came to bring His message of love to everyone, Israel first and then the rest of humanity, but many people rejected His message and still do. Is it too simple or is it just simple enough? I don’t know. I do know that some don’t place much faith in salvation in which we don’t have a part in bringing it about. They don’t like “free” gifts from God. They would rather work for their salvation to help God save their soul but our works are not necessary because Jesus did everything that needed to be done, all we have to do is accept it and believe that He did it for us!
Salvation is a gift from God to us through our belief in Jesus for our eternal soul. We can’t save ourselves and our idea of working for our eternal soul is flawed because of our fallen state. Any righteous act on our part and apart from Jesus is nothing more than rags. Because when we do anything in our own strength to “help” God save us, we are stepping out of His will and into our own. God doesn’t need or want our help in redeeming us because Jesus already accomplished it. All we have to do is believe that He did and repent of our sinful lives so we can follow His footsteps to becoming more like Jesus every day.
A better question might be “Will you be living forever?”. Immortality here in the flesh is not possible and frankly I wouldn’t want to. My aches and pains are bad enough at the age I am now, which is 57. I could not imagine living to be 150 or 250 unless Jesus cured me of all of them. In Genesis when Adam and Eve were created they were created with perfect DNA and therefore could have lived forever IF they hadn’t disobeyed God. Even outside the garden of Eden they lived to a ripe old age. Adam lived to be 930 years of age, so to many people today that would be immortal since it is almost 1,000 years!
Jesus said that if we believe in Him for our salvation we will never die. Our physical body on Earth will die but our spiritual body, which we live into eternity with, will not experience the “second death” of being in hell and it will live into eternity in Heaven with God and all of the believers who are there. There are passages in the Bible which tell us that we will know our loved ones and be known as we were on Earth but with a deeper understanding given to us by God Himself. Your body and mine will be recognizable by our family and friends regardless of our race or our age. So immortality is possible but only through Jesus and His redeeming grace for us.
Those who have rejected Jesus in this life still have an immortal body in hell but they will experience the eternal punishment of being in a place where the Life of God and His love for us is not present, even if you have refused Him in this life. In my opinion, immortality is only worth it if you can enjoy it. I pray that all who read this will seek Jesus for their salvation before that day when they meet Him as judge rather than being welcomed by Him to your eternal home.
How many of us have considered the fact of the Scripture which says that “God searches the hearts of man”? What does that mean to us in the 21st century?
Many people seem to look at Christians and think that we are backward and that we follow a “god” in blind faith but that is not true. We have faith in God, the God of Creation, and we have the faith which says that we believe His Word and His Works on this Earth. It is not a faith that is blind, and although you can’t see God you can see the works of His hands all around you. Does He know you and me? Yes, He does! He formed us in our mother’s womb to be the people who we are. We were born to parents who could nurture us in the ways and knowledge of Him.
While it is true that some of us didn’t have parents who would do this, God knows our hearts and He will bring us into His service when it is time. For some of us, it will take a little while longer than others, but eventually, we will learn that we are special to God and our talents were given to us for a reason. Our abilities and our faith in Him will bring us to the point of being useful for His Kingdom. It took three years for the disciples of Jesus to learn enough about the Kingdom which He was teaching them about so that they could go out and tell others about His love for them. But the Holy Spirit, which Jesus sent to them after He ascended to the Father, worked through them and the church grew substantially during the first few years and continued to grow from that point on.
Is the church still growing today? Yes, it is although in some countries it is slipping a bit like it is in America. We have become complacent and apathetic in our pursuit of Jesus and the culture that we are living in now doesn’t think that God’s Word and His message are relevant today. Why is that? Mainly because we have been silent on the issues and outside the church. We haven’t been taking the whole Truth of God with us into the world. We come to church and get our fill of His wisdom on Sunday and then we leave the church building and our faith until the next time we meet.
Jesus told His disciples to be “fishers of men” but it seems that the church today has lost the meaning of that command. Making disciples of those we come into contact with is our mandate from God. God knows your heart and your sins whether you have confessed them or not. Make sure of your salvation in this life so you will have Life eternal with Him in the next one.
The Living Message of Christ 