PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

Years ago, my family and I visited St. Augustine, FL, the oldest city in the continental US.  There is a fort there that I found particularly fascinating.  And I recall that it was on that trip that we saw Halley’s Comet—a disappointing sighting to be sure.  But what brought that trip to my remembrance today is that April 2nd is the anniversary of the founding of that city.  On April 2, 1513, Ponce De Leon, the Spanish explorer, landed at that site and claimed the land for Spain.  I don’t know what you remember from your elementary or middle school history, but what I remember is that Ponce De Leon was looking for the Fountain of Youth.  (Pictured at left is Ponce De Leon’s “Fountain of Youth” in St. Augustine, an attraction we did not see on our trip there.)
People want to live forever—always have and always will.  We don’t want to live forever with the problems, diseases, and heartaches we have, but we want eternal life.  And we do all kinds of things to get it, to try to stay young and to cheat death, including paying doctors all kinds of money to come up with better drugs and cures for the sicknesses we endure and electing government officials who will fund cures for the ones we can’t afford.
But the reality is that none of that works.  There is no fountain of youth, there is no escaping death, there is no man-made eternal life.  All of us have an appointment with death and then with our Maker, (Hebrews 9.27.)  But the good news is that God gives eternal life to those who trust in Christ Jesus and it is not simply life after death.  He puts it this way in John 17. 3: Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent.
Eternal life is knowing God.  And we can do it—know God—and have it—eternal life—now!  (In fact, if one waits until after dying to try to get it, it’s too late.)  1 John 5.11 tells us that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  Verse 20 of the same chapter tells us that …we are in Him who is true — even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.  The point is this: eternal life is in Jesus Christ and is Jesus Christ.  To know Him, to trust in Him, is to possess Him, and therefore, to possess eternal life, not just a quantity of life, but a quality of life, glorious life, Godly life, good life, holy life, loving life, for God—Christ—is glorious and good and holy and love.
What every person wants you can have, right now.  Actually, you can have more.  Most people are willing to settle for living longer.  You can have life, real life, God-life, because you can have Christ.  Why settle for anything less?  You think about that.

– Pastor Jim