People have different answers today. Many years ago, at least 40 years, people would say their family, or children, or job, or a hobby was their life. Top answers today are my music, my books, the internet, my cats, my cable TV, a sport, or a sports team. When our children fixate on something, spend all their time and energy on that one thing, we say, “they’ll outgrow it.” Over the years, the things that draw our attention are soon replaced. Music and books change to the new normal in society. The superheroes of today replace the heroes of the past. Music has become noise to the old, and easy listening music is noise to the young. Nothing lasts long.
The Holy Spirit, through James, said the same about our lives and the breath of life within us. “…what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). Life is like the morning fog that is there for a short time then disappears, leaving only a memory of its presence. But is this life all there is? Is there not something about each of us that will endure forever? Let us look at a few points about life from a biblical perspective.
Physical Life is Brief
As noted, this physical existence is very short. Peter, uses partial quotes from eight Old Testament verses and calls it “grass” in that it grows then dies away (1 Peter 1:24). The Psalm of Moses has these words. “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away”(Psalms 90:10). Some live less than a day while others live for many decades, but life within the temporal body will “fly away.”
Life Is Not Physical Things
In Luke 12, Jesus presents the parable of the Rich Fool. His summary statement is “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). Jesus answered the temptation to satisfy His hunger with a miracle by quoting a portion of Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.”The food we eat sustains the physical body but does nothing for the eternal spirit of man.
Life Is Righteousness and Peace
Paul contrasts the physical, temporal needs and the spiritual, eternal needs in Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Paul told the Corinthians that because of what God had done, “You are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God–and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). To be “in Christ” makes us a part of Him and not of this physical existence. We may suffer, being under the influences of the world with its pain, but we belong to and are influenced by, the eternal life which is in Christ. We have this assurance, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). Paul wrote words of encouragement to Timothy, and they apply equally to us today. “But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses”(1 Timothy 6:11-12).
Where We Find Life
One Thousand years before Jesus came, the Holy Spirit prophesied that God would raise the Messiah from the dead. “For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life” (Psalms 16:10-11). When He came, He said that people who chose to follow Him will always live in His protection. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28). As John writes about the testimony of the Holy Spirit, he says, “This is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12).
The process of following the Messiah, Jesus Christ, through death, burial, and resurrection is explained in Romans 6. “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:3-5).
Are you a follower of Jesus through baptism into life eternal?
