Dear Reader,
This, again, is intended
to invite you to know Jesus. We all need to know Him because He is God. We all
need to know God. Because we all need Him. Because whether we live or die depends
on Him.
In the Gospel according to
St. Matthew, Chapter 16, Verse 25 Jesus said this to people around Him:
“For whoever wants to save
their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it.”
He meant exactly this: We
live for Him, not for ourselves! Simple! We live for His sake. We fulfill His
will, not our own will in our life. It’s all about leading a life of
self-denial. This is what Jesus meant when He said:
“Whoever wants to be My
disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.”
Denying our self is taking
up our cross. The next step is to follow Him. It means death of our ‘self’ –
the sinful self – the life of flesh. The life of flesh means leading a life of
sinful pleasures. Until and unless we sacrifice the life of flesh with its
sinful pleasures, we cannot have the life that Jesus promises. The life that
Jesus promises is abundant:
“Very truly I tell you,
unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single
seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
It is glorified, free from
the weaknesses that mark our flesh-and-blood life, free from sorrow, diseases
and death:
“The body that is sown is
perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in
glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural
body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also
a spiritual body.”
(1
Corinthians 15:42-44)
The life that we are
living at present is lived in a body that will perish one day. All will die. Kings
and their subjects, wealthy and poor, great and small, important and
unimportant – all will die and turn to dust – the same dust that we tread on.
It is not going to reflect the beauty of a Miss Universe or intelligence of a
scientist or the art of artists or the powers of emperors, kings, statesmen,
etc. It will be dust. All beauty, powers, intelligence, art, might, wealth, etc
will end up there…one day.
The life Jesus promises is
very unlike this life on earth. It will be imperishable, glorious, powerful and
spiritual. And the glory of each life will be marked by diversity and
uniqueness which are infinitely greater than the life of flesh on earth. It
will be simply mind-boggling:
“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.”
“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.”
(1
Corinthians 15:35-41)
It is the life that awaits
us beyond the grave…It is the life as it is lived in the Kingdom of Heaven –
the ideal world that the mankind has been striving for from time it was driven
out of the Garden of Eden. It will be a life that will be free from sin,
corruption, sorrow, disease and death. We find it in Jesus. That is reason
enough to find Jesus. Will you find Him now?
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