There is a more abundant life which the Son of God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, graciously gives to those who place their trust in Him. This uncommon existence is called eternal life; it begins at the moment of conversion when a person willingly accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and personal Saviour resulting in a phenomenon called new birth which the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ enters and accomplishes in believers. For possessors of eternal life, death is simply a translation from mortality to immortality. At death the anointed soul of a Christian escapes from the visible physical body and receives invisible spiritual nature that goes to be with the Lord Jesus Christ in the third heaven. Hence the book of Revelation says, Blessed are the dead who die in Christ from now on...they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them Revelation 14:13. Earlier in the book of Revelation, living souls of dead believers divinely received white robes in heaven (Revelation 6:9-11). Explaining this truth about eternal life, Apostle Paul expresses a dilemma: For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body (Philippians 1:21-24). Believers that die enter a more pleasant place for the consummation of eternal life.
Imagine how the tiny egg of a butterfly hatches and gives rise to a very active caterpillar that destroys valuable vegetation. Soon an inactive, seemingly dead stage emerges which neither feeds nor moves. Before long a flying nectar-feeding butterfly escapes. A great life arises from the nearly dead cocoon. This outwardly dead phase gave rise to the most versatile stage of the butterfly life circle.
Eternal life is the best life for mankind. It is a life of love, peace and joy which the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ facilitates within genuine Christians; a life of fairness, justice and righteousness which death is powerless to terminate. Human physical death only releases the soul from a cocoon of the human body to exist forever. I urge every reader to desire and appropriate eternal life. Simply accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and eternal life becomes supernaturally actualized in you.
© Rev. Fidelis C. Obianozie (2018)
