Death

Yesterday I had an 'aha' moment.  Of course it came through the children's curriculum at church, but however God chooses to reveal Himself to me I'm good with.  Let's face it sometimes I need the elementary teaching to "get it."  I hope I can convey my thoughts clearly enough for what few readers I have.  I am in no way a theologian, so this is simply my interpretation of scripture and what I felt the Lord was trying to show me.  I pray that it benefits you and brings you closer to Him.

The children at our church are doing The Gospel Project on Wednesday evenings and today's lesson was about how sin entered the world.  When put in the garden, Adam is warned not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for on the day he does he will surely die (Gen. 2:15-17 KJV).  If you are familiar with the story you know that the snake comes and tempts Eve, she eats the fruit and then gives some to Adam who also eats the fruit.  Put simply, they disobey God and sin enters the world.  Jumping ahead a little they are confronted by God of their sin and He punishes them each and then in Genesis 3:22 God sends them out of the garden so they may not eat of the tree of life and live forever.  

That is were the WOW comes in.  God loved them enough that He gave them death.  I know, where is the good part in death?  Here is the beauty of it.  When they ate the forbidden fruit they became sinners.  If they were to eat from the tree of life they would have been sinners FOREVER.  Eternal separation from God.  What could be worse?  By eating the fruit of the tree of life it wouldn't have made them better or erased what they had done.  Instead it would have made their spiritual condition permanent.  God loved them far too much for that to happen, so He sends them away from the garden, which was a sentence to death.  

Growing up death was probably the scariest thing for me.  The eternal separation of someone I loved sounded terrifying to me.  The Lord has delivered me of that fear, and while I am not eager for death, yesterday I saw the gift that death offers.  God's presence.  A chance to be reunited with Him.  A chance that would not have happened had He not sent them out of the garden.  Do you see the correlation?  God couldn't stand the idea of being separated from us, so death is the way back to Him.  A chance to leave a sinful world and be covered by the blood of Christ, another necessary death for us to be reconciled to Him.  A chance for forgiveness.  Romans 8:35 says "Who can separate us from the love of Christ?" NOTHING!  Not even death (Romans 8:37-39).  It is through Christ's death that our death has any meaning at all.  Any purpose.  If we are covered in Christ's blood then with our death comes reconciliation to the Father.  What a beautiful picture of His love for us.  He sent Christ to die so that our death would bring us back to Him.  

However the ball is still in our court.  Christ offered the perfect sacrifice, but we have to receive it and believe on Him.  If you are unsure if you are covered by Christ and whether you will be eternally separated from God or eternally reconciled to God please check out the following here.  May I see you all in His presence that glorious day!