03 - Life Series

Hello and welcome back to another message on ‘Perspectives!’ This is the third message, and today I am dealing with the topic of ‘life’ itself. If you were to say to me, “How is life?” I’d say it’s wonderful, and for that I give praise to God. The question, “What is life?” has been asked by so many philosophers over the years, I guess there are more definitions to life, than there are philosophers.

1. The Origin of Life

Life originated with God, and did not evolve, as we were taught to believe in school. The book of Genesis 2:7 says, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (NKJV) The eternal God who is ever-living, breathed into humans, and we became living beings. So the originator of life if is God Himself. Let’s never forget that.

2. The owner of Life

Who is the owner of life? Do you and I own our lives? No, we don’t. If God originated life, then God owns our lives. We didn’t earn it, we can’t pay for it; we were gifted life. God gifted us life. We are mere stewards of life, and we’re supposed to take care of the life that God has so kindly, and generously gifted us. Let’s remember this - we were gifted life and we don’t own it, and therefore we are responsible to God and accountable to Him, for the way in which we live our lives.

For those of us who believe in Jesus, we know that we are twice owned. We were first owned by God because He created us, and we were owned again by God because God Himself redeemed us through the blood (or the death) of His son Jesus. So therefore, we are owned by God Himself. We don’t belong to ourselves. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (NKJV) This means we are not here to live any way we want. We are here to live the way God intended for us to live, when He created us in the first place - to love Him, honor Him, worship, reflect Him and serve Him.

3. The Temporalness and yet the Eternity of Life

During this Pandemic the one thing that has really come to the forefront is the frailty of life. Life is temporal; it’s here today, and gone tomorrow. The bible says that life is like a vapor and like the grass of the field. I am sure every one of us know at least one person who was here one day and gone the next, because of the virus. Now we know that with or without the virus we are all going to die one day, unless the Lord returns before we pass away. There are so many ways that one can die, but one thing is certain - we are all going to die. But that’s not what God intended for life to be, He intended for us to live forever when He created us. Man disobeyed God, and rebelled against Him and brought death upon Himself. Despite that, back in the day, people died at the ages of 900, 950 and 969 (Methuselah). After the flood and the times of Noah God decided that man’s life would not cross a hundred and twenty years. Later, Moses said in Psalm 90:9-10, “For all our days have passed away in your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. 10 The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” Anyway, it doesn’t matter how long we live on this earth, we are all going to die. That’s how temporal our life is.

There’s another aspect of man that we are not so conscious of all the time, and maybe sometimes not even aware of. It’s the fact that man is both body and soul. This body is going to die, but that soul is going to live on forever. Let’s remember that the eternal God created us in His image, which means that the soul that we have inside of us is going to live on forever. Where our soul spends eternity depends on whether or not we surrender our lives over to the Lord so that He takes control of our lives. When we give our lives over to the Lord and live our lives loving, obeying and serving Him, we know that we will spend eternity with Him. So, let’s not forget that our life is both temporal, and at the same time eternal.