Friday, June 03, 2016

IS LIFE AFTER DEATH MERELY WISHFUL THINKING?

Is Christianity simply a nice element to an already cluttered world or is there a legitimacy which needs to be seriously considered.  I believe the latter is the case; yet, I am sympathetic toward any who are not certain.  I get it.  Would you mind if I share my take on what is a significant question to so many?

I believe that life after death is more than wishful thinking.  My conclusion has been reached on the basis of intentional research; not inherited tradition that might include ritualistic habit or whatever indifference.  You surely might reach a different conclusion than I; but please....please don't go into eternity with little more than criticism of we religious people who haven't represented God as well as even we had wished.

The reason that a next life is to be believed can come in various formidable facts:
  1. Farmers plant seed in the ground hoping it to die...in order that abundantly more seed arise.  The new life is much more seed than was planted.  Life comes indeed and even due to death.
  2. Every time one reflects upon today's date a confession is made that Jesus was born.  Earth's timetable is an admission that B.C. took a turn into a new calculating system of A.D.  Jesus is the reason for the new season.
  3. The Bible can't be eradicated from existence.  People have tried.  Nations have tried to gather Bibles and burn them in public square.  It continues to survive the most organized attacks.
  4. Everyone clearly sees that each of us is composed of flesh and spirit.  We are both inner and outer people; two worlds living in stunning combination.  The inner includes our attitudes, thoughts, imaginations, etc.  The outer is obvious as well.  Our dual existence verifies there is a spiritual side to life.
The above items are merely ideas to ponder.  Of course, my point is that to believe in life after death is not being superficially gullible as some choose to view the topic.  I'm not sure, but I think this issue is basically ignored; not from researched disbelief but from simply not wanting to think about it.  Death is what happens to others...so far.  

The Word of God calls each on of us to start life over in mid-stream.  Born once we are asked that we consider being born again.  We are to be born in the flesh and then in the spirit for we are both.  The problem arises when we decide that the first birth is the completion of being a person.  It isn't.

John 3:3-8 is to be treasured; not debated.  Jesus sent his disciples into all of the world hoping the news would spread regarding this very factor, Mt. 28:18-20, equipping them with a message of full, total, and complete personhood.  All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Life after death isn't merely wishful thinking.  It is substantial and responsible thinking.  If one wants to offer thoughtless coffee-shop mocking toward any who believe that God is actual, such a one is surely free to engage in such conversation.  I reference this as I might have been in on such conversations in my earlier days.  

Every person receives repeated significant messages day by day verifying that this present earthly existence is short-lived.  Funerals are a way of life.  Even that statement is weird, isn't it?  Jesus died on the cross as the absorbent of our sins.  Jesus is our exemption.  He is the only one who died (and arose) so that we could live.  Life after death isn't merely wishful thinking.  It is a sobering matter that deserves important evaluation.  

Should you conclude that such an exercise is not true, do so please upon serious research and not because a friend gave no thought to it either.  You cannot afford to roll with a doubting crowd.  Eventually, I believe that you will one day call a friend and tell them that you want to study the Bible with them.  This will, it seems, lead you to weigh whether you believe that Jesus calls you to be baptized.  For me?  I believe He deeply desires to wash our sins away at baptism that the Holy Spirit of God might take up residence within.  

Might you begin to lean that direction as well...Acts 8:34-38?








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