This week an e-mail friend sent an insurance company’s online device designed to calculate the length of the lives of clients it insures. By inputting certain data about height, weight, personal habits and genetic history, the insurance company can determine, in theory, how long a potential customer can expect to live. Poking the buttons proved interesting, since a slight change in data could improve or worsen one’s life expectancy.
I showed the device to my son, age 27, and he spent several minutes playing with the numbers. To his dismay he discovered that changing just one entry—inserting female into the slot for gender—automatically added ten years, no matter what the other factors were.
For fun he decided to input all the negative data the calculator offered. The result? He was already dead.
Every projection punched into the calculator issued a number—a finite age at which that person would no longer live. Not once did the machine ever say, “You will live forever.”
A sobering reality.
Regardless of how healthy our lifestyle and how clean our genes, we all face an ultimate end. Scripture tells us in Hebrews 9:27 “it is appointed unto man to die once and after that the judgment.”
But life doesn’t have to end there. Man’s soul, that intertwined thread within that connects us to the heavenly Father, can live forever. I John 5:11,12 says: “And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life, but he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
Now that’s a projection we can count on. No manmade calculator can change the outcome because the data God provides is permanently fixed. Our lives in eternity are guaranteed—we will live forever if we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
Happy Easter!
This next week I’m attending a five-day writer’s conference out of state. My blog will return in April. Blessings on each of you.
I’m grateful for my relationship with Jesus, which is eternal, and I’m also thankful for the tremendous blessings he’s give me on earth as well. I just hope my life benefits others.
Pat,
This was an excellent way to share the gospel! Your thoughts were well-written once again.
I hope you have a meaningful Easter with friends and family. See you in April.
Juanita