S186P12 – A promise is a promise: death shall not come

Jn. 11:25-26

Jesus said to [Martha], “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.  Do you believe this?”

His was a discontented life.  A man who felt he never had enough and thought the world was out to get him, he lived with one eye on his neighbors’ coffers and the other looking over his shoulder.  When he competed and lost, he figured his victors would get theirs in the end.  When he applied for a job or a promotion and encountered rejection, he had the same thought.  He always believed that death is the great equalizer, that we all eventually have the same fate.  That was his way of assuring himself that no one would come out ahead of him.  Although a common sentiment, it is wholly inaccurate.  We know that those who believe in Christ never will taste death. 

Jesus made this same statement to a group of Jews who were listening to him defend himself and had begun to believe in him. [John 8:28-59]  These words, however, turned the tide of that momentary faith.  In fact, the story ends with those people trying to stone him.  Such was the boldness and absurdity of this statement.  The problem was that those people could not, and many today cannot, comprehend the idea of passing from life to life.  It makes no sense and seems physically impossible, but that is what our Savior promises us.  The sting of death does not exist for everyone.  Death is no equalizer at all.  For those who are found and saved, for the faithful and the righteous in Christ, death has no power.

The true characterization of death is that it is the great divider.  There are some whose end will come at its hands and who have no hope in any good future beyond the temporary and unfulfilling joys of this world.  There are others who will not face it, who have defeated it by virtue of the work of Jesus on the cross.  We never stop living, and we see no interruption of this great life God has gifted us.  The nature of life will change, but life never ends.  Our bodies will transform, our surroundings will be made new, but we simply go on living.  We go from strength to strength, from glory to glory, from life to life.  Father, thank You for life everlasting and the mercy of sparing us even a single moment of death.