BY DEATH WE LIVE

By Shirley Wiggins

Does it make you a bit sad to see the spring and summer seasons come to their end and have all those beautiful flowering blooms fade away and die?

Even though I love fall’s bright and beautiful leaves and colors just as much, I must admit I miss the beautiful sights, scents, and smells of spring and summer. 

Winter brings its own beauty, of course, but as the colors change and green vegetation is covered over with the frosts of ‘death’ to the blooms, everything changes and we look for the beauty that may be a bit harder to find.

Death is like that, isn’t it?  It changes everything about life.  Mrs. Cowman’s Streams in the Desert¹  devotional carries that theme in the words of one whom she credits only as “Beecher.”

Beecher tells the story of some beautiful summer asters in the garden and how the goodbye was made as their season ended and they perished.

Then to Beecher’s great delight it was later found that for every aster that had disappeared in winter’s death “fifty plants had been planted.”

He said in picture-sketching words that all the winter “frosts and surly winds” caught his flowers, slew them, casting them to the ground and having trod upon them with “snowy feet” left them as if to say:  “This is the end of you.”  But come the next spring “there were for every root, fifty witnesses to rise up and say, “By death we live.”

With his beautiful words, Beecher said that the same is true in God’s kingdom.  By the death of Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, “came everlasting life.”  By Christ’s cruel death on the cross and his subsequent three-day burial in the sepulcher, and then resurrection day came “the throne and the palace of the Eternal God.  By overthrow came victory.”

“Do not be afraid to suffer.   Do not be afraid to be overthrown.”  “It is by being cast down and not destroyed; it is by being shaken to pieces, and the pieces torn to shreds, that [we, men and women] become [men and women] of might…”

He warned that those who “yield to the appearance of things, and go with the world, have their quick blossoming, their momentary prosperity and then their end, which is an end forever.”

But those who know God through the gruesome death and glorious resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, will spend eternity alive forevermore in fellowship with God and Christ, the Lamb! 
All because Jesus Christ died, so that whosoever will choose Him may live.
The Bible teaches throughout its pages that though there is only one way to God, and that way is through Jesus Christ, that as many as will receive Him by believing on His name, to them God will give the right to become His children through what many refer to as “the second birth.” 

John 1:1-18 tells us of the deity of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, calling Jesus “the Light.”

“The true Light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.  He came to that which was His own but His own did not receive Him.  Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. … No one has  ever seen God, but the One and Only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.”  John 1:9-14,18 (NIV 2011).

John 3:1-21 gives us Jesus’ teaching to Nicodemus about being born again:

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish ruling council, who desired to find out more about Jesus because it was evident to him that Jesus was more than just a good teacher.

Jesus startled him with this astounding statement in verse 3:  “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Can’t you just imagine the bewilderment on Nicodemus’ face as he asked, “How can someone be born when they are old?  Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” (v.4)

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at My saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. “ (verses 5-8).

Nicodemus asks for more, verse 9:  “How can this be?”

Verses 11-21, Jesus said:  “Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.  I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?  No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.  Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.  For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.  Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s One and Only Son.  This is the verdict:  Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

Are you, dear friend, as glad as I am that we do not have to explain the unexplainable in order to believe?  I am so grateful that God doesn’t require our total understanding; although, He does call for our obedient commitment to believe what He tells us.

Remember how Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus, received the astounding news from the angel Gabriel that she was highly favored and the Lord was with her and she would be the one to give birth to the Son of the Most High?    When she asked for more information about how that could be since she was an unmarried virgin, the angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. …” 

Mary’s beautiful response was, “I am the Lord’s servant, may your word to me be fulfilled.”     See Luke 1:26-38 (NIV 2011).

May we say, as she did:  “Lord, I am Your servant, may Your word be fulfilled in me.”    Amen.

 

 

 

¹Streams in the Desert Compiled by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman; ©1965 Cowman Publications, Inc.; pages 294-295.