“You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.” (Job 14:5 NLT)

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-10 NLT)

“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!” (Psalm 139:16-18 NLT)

“For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice. And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:24-28 NLT)

“So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.” ((1 Corinthians 15:21-23 NLT)

…I have been called…

…to help the children of God realize that it is our Father’s desire that as His children we live strong long lives worth living, without limit or end, with nothing missing or broken; therefore He designed us to live lives filled with purity, passion, power, and purpose; as in partnership with Him we expand the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (here and now); regardless of our current age or condition.

We are going to look at the five passages of scripture quoted above, which I believe are the most commonly referred to by those seeking to justify the current culture of death that has overrun the Church. However, before we do this, allow me to lay a foundation with a short history lesson.

It is interesting to note that for the first 300 years after the resurrection of Jesus, even though it was a time of heavy persecution and martyrdom, the culture of the Church was one of life. The focus of music, art, and written materials, was of the miracles, good works, and resurrection of Christ. Rarely was there a cross included. Death was not a major theme, not even death on the cross. As a matter of fact, the cross was not the primary symbol of the Church at this time. The primary symbols used by Christians prior to the 4th century were the fish (Ichthys) and the Chi-Rho (XP).

There were some Christians who used the cross as a symbol as early as the 2nd century, but they were few and far between. The cross represented death by Roman execution and was avoided by most. It wasn’t until the 4th century, when the Roman Emperor Constantine shifted to Christianity and sanctioned the Christian religion, that the cross became predominant. It was from the 4th century moving forward that the cross became what it is today. After the shift in Rome the cross became a major focal point in Christian art and funerary monuments cementing its position as a major symbol of the Church. Symbolically, the Roman Catholic Church left Jesus hanging on the cross creating a central focus on his death. This seems to be when the Church began to focus less on the miracle filled life of Christ and the abundant life available through the resurrection, to a culture focused to a greater degree on Jesus’ crucifixion and the consequences of sin, judgement, and death. 

Over the last seven years the Holy Spirit has been taking me through boot camp. He has been tearing me down and building me back up. One of the things that has become very clear to me is that while the cross is central to the message of forgiveness, it does not stand alone in significance without the resurrection. The Apostle Paul made this very clear.

“And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.” (1 Corinthians 15:14-19 NLT)

It is the resurrection that gives us life! Without it the cross was just another excruciating death at the hands of the Romans. At best Jesus would have been a martyr for a losing cause. He didn’t come to launch a religion focused on death. He came to reveal the love of the Father and restore us to a relationship of life. If we are going to see death as it truly is we need to see it through the eyes of life. Only from a culture of life will we ever deal with our last enemy (death) as Jesus did. 

If I am looking for death I will easily find it. If I am trying to defend its right to end my life then I will easily do just that. Death surrounds me and has infiltrated every aspect of the surrounding culture inside and outside of the Body of Christ. Only when the Holy Spirit opens my eyes will I see death as an enemy to not only be beaten, but to be completely banished from every aspect of my life (spirit, soul, and body).

From this foundation of resurrected life, we will examine the five primary passages that I believe have been  inaccurately applied  to our current understanding of the Father’s desire and design for our lives in relation to death. This has contributed to turning an eternal relationship of life into a religion of death and dying (including aging as most experience it).

Before we jump in, let’s take a break and consider all that was shared in…

…Eric’s Life Lesson # 376: Late Life Assignment: Part 12 – The Promise: Strong, Long Lives: Part 8