CHAPPY’S PIT STOP

The Answer is Life!

Words: Steve Hanson

All throughout the bible we read about life. The more you read it the more the theme of life will grab your attention. Here are just a few popular scriptures. PROVERBS 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart for it is the well spring of life. PSALMS. 16:11 You have make know to me the path of life. JOHN 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. JOHN 5:40 Come to me to have life. ACTS 5:20 Tell the people the full message of this new life. JOHN 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Saint Irenaeus is quoted as saying, “the glory of God is man fully alive.” That is very different then saying Jesus came to just forgive you! Forgiveness is awesome, it is one of the cornerstons that make up the Christian theology. But, there is so much more to this Christian life then just claiming salvation through Christ reserection. Jesus said that he came to give us life. JOHN 6:48 “I am the bread of life” JOHN 7:38 “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Jesus doesn’t locate his offer to us in some distant future after clocked in and out of life from our days here on earth. He talks about a life available to us in this age, right now. Paul agrees I TIMITHY 4:8 …godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

When most of us hear the words of eternal life associated with “being saved” and the promise of heaven. We interpret that as a life that awaits us in some distant future. But what eternal really means is “unending” not a later date. What the scriptures mean is we can never loose this life, it can’t be taken away from us. The offer is life, and it starts now with a personal relationship with Christ! ROMANS 10: 6-13MSG But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying? The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest. It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!” No word that God has spoken is a mere literary artifact to be studied; no human experience is dead history merely to be regretted or admired. The complete range of the human experience is brought to life with the full revelation of God living through us. So, live this! And live it NOW!