Life. What is life? In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Perhaps life is the opposite of death, and we all want to avoid death. What is the difference between life and death?
We know this as God. So God must be the life giver, right? Life cannot be explained apart from God. Death must be then separation from God. Life must be connection with God.
Spiritually, we want to aim for eternal life, right? We want to have everlasting life. We want to have life in communion with God. We want to come to God and there has to be a way to enter into His presence.
Now, God is significantly different than you or I. He, I cannot be Him. So God does not equal me. These cannot be both simultaneously true. I am not God because God is God. God is the life giver. God is the creator, the designer, and God intends for us to have everlasting life.
He provides us a way to achieve union, cohesion, reconciliation, redemption, eternal, everlasting life. That is God's desire. God is going to provide a way of salvation through the good news.
The Good News Requires Bad News
Now the good news has to include bad news. The bad news is death is possible. Life is a choice. So I would encourage everyone to choose life, right? If we can choose life, then we must freely and deliberately be able to reject. Can't write and read at the same time.
We need to be able to reject death. Now death is both physical and spiritual. Spiritual separation from God for eternity is the absence of God. So we know that there's a place where God is not, where He's chosen not to be present. And this would be spiritual death or spiritual separation.
It is my choice. So I am the one who rejects God and chooses for myself death. I am the one who freely and deliberately evaluates the proposition of the gospel to choose life. I choose life, right? You get to choose life, both now and in eternity, your choice of life.
The Gospel Centers on God
Now, what are the key components here in the gospel? I would suggest and submit to you that all of the gospel is centered upon God. So, I'm going to flip frames and just go to a fresh page here, and we're going to talk about God.
And I used to apologize for my handwriting, but it's unique. It's different. It's my personality. Your personality is yours. Mine is mine. It's given to me by God. So I'm done apologizing for it.
So we have life in the spirit. We have life from above. The Bible says that we can have life by believing in His name. So the name of God... this is important. It's His identity. It's His reputation. It's His claims. It's His personhood. So my name...
The gospel. The gospel is the good news about eternal life. The gospel is the good news about who God is and what God does.
Understanding Time and Eternity
In order to get to the gospel of eternal life, we have to address the concept of time. So, life that is limited is not good news. Life that is unlimited, that is ever... I love the word ever. You can have everlasting. You can have forever.
Everlasting life is good because it's based upon God. So God is eternal, right? God is eternal. Therefore, we can have hope that eternal life is possible. If God were not eternal, we could never have eternal life. God is timeless. He's eternal, and He is our good creator, right?
So in the beginning God created... if a person does not believe that God is their creator, they by default set themselves up as their own false supportive deity somehow sustaining their own life, somehow making their own identity, somehow designing their own purpose and they become a small g false God.
But here, if we can believe that life has a purpose and that the good news is that life can continue and be everlasting, we have to identify who is the life giver? What name gives Him the power over time? Is God operating inside and above and beyond time? Is He both the alpha, the omega, the beginning, the ending? Is He the I am that I am all present one? Is He our creator?
The Good Designer
If He's my creator, He's my maker, He's also my designer. Now, this is implied that someone with great intellect and the capacity to create would not make garbage.
So God is a good designer. You know, when God originally made all things, He said it is good. Now people like to attack God and say that what He has created now has become corrupted. However, it became corrupted by the power to choose.
The Gift of Choice
So humans are not God. Humans are outside. This is me, right? Me. I have what is called the gift of volition or will. Me. I am a willful, right? Have you ever heard of a willful child? Most children come equipped with a will of their own. Would you agree with that?
That they can resist their parents who love them. They can resist a God who made them. We have to pause. I'll be right back.
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