"I Lived!"

(A repeat from 2007)

"Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:26).


The skeptic who reads our Lord's promise that born again believers will never face death might say, "Aha! You all die as do the rest of us! Your so-called Lord was wrong!"


If we could speak to those Christians who have passed through physical death, however, they would decisively affirm their Savior's promise.


"Death? You can call it that, if you like. However, when I finally - and blessedly - left the earth, my spirit experienced life beyond anything I had ever known. I saw our Lord in His risen glory, and I entered His direct presence, to be with Him forevermore. I didn't die. I lived!"


"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (I Corinthians 15:55).


The Lord Jesus trampled death's sting and the grave's victory under His nail-scarred feet as He exited the tomb in victory. "Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Colossians 2:15). Because the Lord Jesus died, believers will never die in the most important sense. We are "alive unto God" in the spirit, wherein we are united with the Spirit of God (Romans 6:11; I Corinthians 6:17). The demise of our earthly members and faculties is little more than the setting aside of a hindrance that clouds our full view of God's glory. "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank my God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:24).


We shall never die if we have entrusted our life to the Prince of life. We will rather live forevermore in His life. "Believest thou this?" Yes we do, even as our departed brothers and sisters in Christ would affirm. "I didn't die. I lived!"


"Because I live, ye shall live also."
(John 14:19)

"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (I Corinthians 15:51-53).