Immortality part 1
Well that's a pretty big subject, isn't it? One of my favorite movies tackles it--Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade--but I'm not talking about a literally fountain of youth here (or, as seen in the movie, the holy grail). And, don't get me wrong, Psalm 103:5 does say, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." But that's not what I'm trying to explore in this Rant series. More, "But is not made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10). Because it seems like a lot of the time we live like we're dying, instead of living like we're going to live forever. We spend our Three T's (time, talent, and treasure) making sure things will be ok when we're gone. And I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. We SHOULD want to leave things better than we find them. But, like I've Ranted on before, if you are stuck in the future (or the past) you'll miss out on the present. And that's what, to me, immortality is really all about. Living life to the fullest, if I can say it that way. Living out of our abundance. With no fear of death... because death has been abolished. And if we DO go through the gates of physical death, we know that's not the end of the story. Just the end of one chapter before something new happens. Ok. So. The word, "immortality" in our verse of Scripture is number 861 in Strong's Greek Concordance. It means, "incorruptibility; generally unending existence; (figuratively) genuineness: - immortality, incorruption, sincerity." Living a sincere, or true, life. Because you know the truth of the gospel--that God is love and He loves you--and that truth has set you free and made you free. An unending existence because love never ends. As long as there is love... there is life. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. You can't really do one without the other. And the incorruptibility part led me straight to 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born agian, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." And 1 John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." The new birth--which came after the second death (Jesus dying for us and as us on the cross), which was when death and hell were cast into the lake of fire--didn't just hit the reset button on our lives so we could try it again. The new birth brought about a New Man. A man who, according to John 3:16, "...should not perish, but have everlasting life." That's what the gospel brought to light: A life WITHOUT sin and death. A life where our conscious has been purged. Where we can lay aside the sin (unbelief) and the weight that so easily besets us. Where we know the truth, and can just ignore the lie. A life focused on LIFE instead of which way the (in my opinion fictional) cosmic elevator will take us when (if) we die. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God that we have already been given. That we already have. That we simply need to receive and release. That we simply need to know and believe in order to experience. Something that doesn't perish. Something incorruptible. Something that lasts. Love.