Birthright

Jesus died to give us eternal life, not life after death.  When does eternal life start?  If we are in Him, we are in eternal life because His life is eternal.  So, I guess eternal life starts when we are first in Him.  That means it starts when we accept Him as savior and Lord of our life.  Our problem in America is that too many Christians are waiting for the rapture to begin their life when they should already be thinking and living as if they were extensions and ambassadors of the Kingdom.  Our enemy loves it, because if we don’t believe we can make a difference in our surroundings, then we can’t. 

Tonight we had a South African preacher named John Sheasby speak at our school.  His message is all about the new covenant and grace.  As far the staff goes, he was preaching to the choir.  However the students, well they are coming from many different backgrounds and they might not understand the new Covenant like he was explaining it tonight.  Probably the majority of Christians, especially in the south, have taken the “Saved by Grace” part of the Gospel and have just added it to all the works that they feel that they have to do to get to heaven.  John told the story of a Chaplin in a hospital who had been with over 2000 people as they died.  He said that it was so easy for the non believer to accept and receive the grace of God for salvation on their death bed.  He said that they died so peacefully, resting in the arms of their newfound friend.  He said that Christians had a much harder time dying.  They kept asking “if they had done enough”.  They didn’t realize that it had all been for them and that all they really had to do was to rest. 

Rest; that word is easy to say, but very hard to do.  It’s really sad when Christians think that they have to perform in order to do anything in the Kingdom.   It’s important that we as teachers understand that we should make sure that our students begin to understand and experience the grace that Father God was giving.  We have to realize that it is not about any one person, but also understand that there was no striving in the Kingdom.  There was so much more that I could say, but we will save them for another time and another place.