ONLY HIM

ONLY HIM

The story is told of an elderly woman whose memory was starting to fail her. Over the years she had read and studied the Bible so much that she knew many passages by heart. One of her favorites was from Paul’s second letter to Timothy, which included the verse, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him.” As long as she held onto Jesus, He would not fail her.

As time went by, she found that she could no longer remember the whole verse—only the phrase “what I have committed to Him,” which she quietly repeated to herself.

Then at last, as she hovered between this world and the next, the attending doctor noticed her lips moving and bent down to see if she needed anything. She was repeating over and over the one word of the text she remembered. “Him. … Him. … Him.” She had lost the whole Bible except that one word, but in that one word she had the whole Bible and her faith intact.

There is a wonderful place of peace that we too can reach if we can concentrate solely on Jesus. Find a quiet, comfortable spot and try this spiritual exercise:

Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus bending over you like the doctor in the story above. He is listening to your faintest whispers. Now say His name. Slowly repeat it several times. He is there with you, and He is all you care about. This is not the time for a lengthy prayer listing your problems and needs and describing them in detail. It’s a time of simple trust, as you focus your attention on Jesus and Him alone. In these moments you can discover the truth of the Bible promise, “You [Jesus] will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”

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Colossians 3:2 ESV – Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Proverbs 4:25 ESV – Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.

Matthew 6:33 ESV – But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)

LIVING HOPE

LIVING HOPE

I was thinking recently about death—how in spite of all the advances in medical science, death happens eventually to every living creature.
I was curious to see what the Bible had to say about this, and found some amazing things.
Death, it turns out, was not part of God’s original plan for His creation; it was the result of man’s disobedience to God. God had intended for man to live forever, but He could no longer permit that because of man’s fallen, sinful nature. Death is the penalty of sin, and it is one we all must suffer. “Through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

The good news, however, is that the sting of death has been overcome. Jesus Christ conquered death through His resurrection. The Bible calls Jesus’ resurrection the “living hope.” Because Jesus was raised from the dead, there is the promise that others will be raised too. This will occur at Jesus’ second coming, when everyone alive who has accepted Jesus into their hearts will receive new, supernatural bodies, like Jesus’ at His resurrection.

And to those believers who have passed on before this event, Jesus promised that death would not be the end but rather the threshold to a new life in the spirit. He said, “Because I live, you will live also.” For believers, death is like passing from one room into another and closing the door. They are set free from the weight and other limitations of their physical bodies and liberated into the boundless world of the spirit.

All around the world, many thousands of people have had what are now commonly termed “near-death experiences.” These people died, perhaps following an accident or during a medical procedure, but then were revived. Many of them recalled later that during the time when they were clinically dead or very close to death, they entered the world beyond. There they were overwhelmed with the feeling of being loved by a being of light, which many identified as Jesus or God, and they also saw angels, departed loved ones, and even pets. It was the most wonderful thing they had ever seen, they said, with a beauty and glory beyond anything they had previously known. One other thing that many of these near-death survivors have in common is that they no longer fear death, for they have experienced, even if only for a moment, the next world.

If we trust in Jesus, we too have a living hope of entering this dazzling new dimension when our present lives are over. There we will enjoy the splendors of heaven for all eternity, without any of the pain or problems we have now. “And God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

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Romans 5:12 (NIV) Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

1 Peter 1:3 (NIV) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

John 14:19 (NIV) Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)