The Living God part 1
I think it's interesting that we are so focused on the after-life. Especially when you consider that we've already been given EVERLASTING life. Especially when you consider that Jesus came to GIVE us life, and that more abundantly. We spend the gift we've been given trying to get something we've already got. Look at Mark 12:26-27 (NLT), "But now, as to whether the dead will be raised--haven't you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error." I always thought this was interesting. Because Jesus is literally saying that even though Abrahm, Isaac, and Jacob died... they aren't dead. It's like we still look at physical death as the end of the journey. When really I believe it's simply the end of PART of the journey. Let me say it another way, "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51). And to me this verse (along with Enoch and Elijah) totally blows the whole "everybody dies so we might as well accept it" theory out of the water. But here's the real question, the question I ask myself before I preach or Rant something: Who cares? What does it matter? Is this important? And I think it is. Because I think God wants us to LIVE. He's the God of the LIVING. He's concerned with LIFE. In the garden of Eden there were two trees, the Tree of Life and the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil). And God only wanted us to eat from one of them. In fact, Jesus went so far was to curse the tree of death (the fig tree) because it couldn't bear any fruit. So that when to get to the true paradise of God in the book of Revelation there's only one tree left. The Tree of Life. Jesus. He is the vine. And we are the branches. We experience His life not by trying to live it out of our own strength and power, but simply by being connected to Him. By letting Him live His own life in, and through, and as us. That's why Jesus gave His life for us, and gave His life to us. Because He's the LIVING God. I always say it like this: God doesn't want to be a part of your life. He wants to BE your life, because He IS life! He LIVES in us. We LIVE in Him. Acts 17:28 says it like this, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." And that means that in us HE lives, and moves, and has His being! There is no separation. No duality. No good and evil. Just life, life, and more life. And, because to live is to love and to love is to live, there's just love, love, and more love! The living God is the loving God! The happy God! The God of joy unspeakable and peace that passes understanding. The God who lives in us, even as we live in Him!