Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Eternal Life and the Resurrection!

‘Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”’ – John 6:35-40 NIV

We receive joy and happiness when we are doing something that we like, such as watching television and playing games. When we are feeling down or tired of everything in life, we do those things to get satisfaction. When we get headaches from something, those things may help in relaxing our minds. When we are tired of using those methods to get satisfaction, we try other ones to have satisfaction. If the method is watching television, we probably want to watch a new television programme when it has ended.

Because we create satisfactory methods all the time, we know that everything is passing away. However, there is only one method that would not pass away. The method is Jesus Christ. This does not make any sense but if we realise that He is the eternal One, then it becomes clear. Since believers have eternal life in Him because of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, they would be resurrected in the end of our physical lives—just like Jesus Christ after three days of the crucifixion (Romans 8:10-11). Romans 6:5-14 states that the resurrection of Christ provides us eternal life and resurrection at the last day, so I guess it is quite important to be baptised if we believe in Jesus Christ.

As we talked about the Holy Spirit being the seal of our eternal redemption yesterday, the Holy Spirit is actually the Spirit of God but can be probably known as the Spirit of the life (John 6:63-65) and the Spirit of the freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17) as well.  Because the Holy Spirit is a seal of our eternal redemption (Ephesians 1:13-14) and John 10:1-30 declares that no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand,” I think those who have received the Holy Spirit cannot permanently lose the desire of knowing and seeking Jesus Christ. If they lose it, somehow, I believe the Holy Spirit is going to prompt them to get the desire back.

I watch television or play one of the games to relax my mind from theology. This does not mean I am tired of doing theology in my mind all the time. I believe getting headaches if we are consistently focusing on something is normal thing for humans. I was afraid of doing what I enjoy other than theology because I might get addictions from them. After a while, I realised that doing those things are okay for Christians as long as they keep Jesus Christ as the centre of their lives. I think I only had to delete Pokemon games because of the addiction. Sometimes, I want to download Pokemon games so badly but I have to endure my temptation by focusing on Jesus Christ.  

To get the desires of knowing and seeking Jesus Christ, I strongly believe that we should establish Him as the foundation of hope (Luke 6:46-49; 1 Peter 1:3-9). In other words, if we hope in Christ and trust that He would never fail, we can enjoy Him all day long. For example, I enjoy reading devotionals and the Bible because they are about Him. I think I am starting to enjoy my prayer life as well, due to the fact that prayer is the method of communicating to God. A couple of weeks ago, I had struggle to rejoice in Jesus Christ because my eyes of the heart were set in earthly things. As soon as I set them into eternal things and His written word, I began to rejoice in Him again.

Search the song called “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” by Amy Grant and meditate on it and ask yourself questions: “Am I setting my eyes of the heart on earthly or eternal things? How can I set them on the eternal things completely as days pass by?” Listen to “This I Believe (The Creed)” by Hillsong Worship as well. Thank the Lord that we have eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ!

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