Honest Love

The Scriptures overflow with the promises of God’s unfathomable love. The thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah is just one example. “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 This is a love that springs from the depths of God’s being. God promises joy. He will restore us.  But when one has been diagnosed with a terminal disease, it is very difficult to take God at His Word.

Perhaps a reason for that is because when we are well we think our life belongs to ourselves. But it never has. We were given life by God. At the very time in which our first parents disobeyed God and would suffer an eternal death apart from Him, He revealed the depths of His grace and mercy by establishing a new relationship with us.  He offered up His Son Jesus Christ who would suffer the penalty of death for us. 

Jesus went to visit Martha and Mary because their brother Lazarus had died. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered “I know my brother will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.  Do you believe this?” John 11:21-26     

Each believer has eternal life from Jesus, right now, before the last day. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20