My recent attitude adjustment contained a prayer walk through Psalm 118. Today’s prayer is centered in verses 17-21: “I will not die but live and will proclaim what the LORD has done. The LORD has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.”
As I read those verses I was, of course, reminded of God’s recent chastening over my maladjusted attitude. He did that so that I might live and walk in righteousness. James promised that is what happens when we confess our sins to our Father.
Then I looked again at that section of the psalm and was moved by the beginning and the end of it. “I will not die but live … He opens for me the gates of righteousness so that I might enter in.” Immediately my mind went to John 10:9-10: “I [Jesus] am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved…. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”
Jesus is my gate. Jesus is my life. Jesus gives me more than life; He gives me abundant life! (Maybe we should all read that again as a reminder that once we walked through that gate of righteousness, we have life, eternal life.)
Yes, our bodies may succumb to this virus. Yes, our bodies will one day succumb to something. That does not destroy the life that Christ has given us. All we truly are, our spirit and soul, live. For the believer, the fear of death has been replaced with the knowledge that we now pass through death into the very presence of our Savior. That wonderful assurance generates in us an abundant life that can be experienced no other way.
I do not dismiss or disparage our reluctance to die. No one wants to go through the diminishing of our body’s strength or vitality. No one wants to suffer the indignities that often accompany disease. We hate those things which, still part of sin’s curse, attack our bodies. But beloved, we can be assured that death is not the end. It truly is the beginning of all things wonderful. After all remember, “we are living in the land of the dying, heading to the land of life!”
