Life #22 - Life on Faith's Terms

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A dear friend and brother-in-Christ fell asleep last month. He had thought about Jesus’ promise, “…whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:26 NIV), but the process to mĕtamŏrphŏō into the Lord’s image and to transform his mind (2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 12:2) was going to take time, which our friend did not have. For the rest of us, however, there is still time.

God’s promises come by faith to each of us (Romans 4:16 NIV). And although Jesus gave us the promise of life, like Abraham we receive the promise by works of faith—for faith without works is dead faith (James 2:17). Thus corruption—in the forms of aging, disease, and death—will continue to assault our mortal bodies until the promise of unending life becomes our reality, our Isaac.

Our works of faith are to participate in the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:3, 4 NIV) and—because of Jesus’ life and godliness—to live by, and keep in step with, the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:13-25 NIV). That’s how we escape the world’s corruption!

Corruption took at least 900+ years to gain the victory over Methuselah (Genesis5:27), but for us the reverse should not take so long. In fact, the mĕtamŏrphŏō process completes itself within our lifetime—all because Jesus abolished death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).

So why aren’t Christians receiving Jesus’ promise that we "will never die"?

Perhaps our hearts are slow to believe.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.