It is my new birth month and I am over the top elated about it, I literally cannot get over the fact that God chose me, cleaned me up and saved me from eternal damnation. I was listening to this amazing song by Minister Faith Owolabi, Pastor Godswill Oyor and Minister Ijeoma Nwachi- Zoe during the week and I could not help but go down memory lane the past seven years with my Jesus. It sure has been an adventure with Him and I would do it over and over with Him.
The wonderful ministration by the trio I mentioned above emphasizes the kind of life that we have in Jesus, the Zoe kind of life, the eternal life that Jesus gave us access to through His death and resurrection on the cross of calvary. All week I could not help but ponder on this great miracle and access that Jesus Christ has given us. I just want to scream to the whole world that Jesus is the bestest friend you could ever have and If you are still sitting on the fence about Him – come to Him.
With all of that said, I would love expound a little bit about this eternal life Jesus gave us. Could you turn with me to John chapter 3? Lol! *side note, as I read this chapter again after watching some episodes The Chosen series, I could not help but picture Nicodemus from the cast asking Jesus questions about new birth.
Ok, let us go back to the word of God, in John chapter 3. The popular scripture we know from this chapter is from verse 16 which elaborates how much God loved us, still loves us that He gave us His one and only beloved son as ransom from the enemy. In that His sacrifice, atonement for the sins of the world was made, salvation was made available, deliverance from the shackles of the enemy was made, ability to live a triumphant life was made, access and sweet communion with the Lord Himself was made possible through this sacrifice. In summary, the scripture says, – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For the longest time, when I thought about this everlasting life, all I thought about was the life I would have after my demise and exit from the earth. Praise Jesus, that I have that hope of eternal life with Him after my death. But truth be told, this eternal life actually starts here on this earth. Let us take a quick journey back to Eden, Adam and Eve were not subjected to die until they disobeyed God. Hence, they were living the eternal life God designed for us. In the words of one of my favorites pastor, Genesis chapter one and two gives us a clear picture of God’s perfect will and plan for you and I, chapter three shows how man fell off this beautiful plan and the rest of the bible shows us over and over how God was working non-stop to reconcile us back to Him, to take us back to Eden.
So back to my point, Living eternal life does start here on earth. As soon as the breathe of God resuscitates our dead spirit man – we start to live with eternity in view. And my dear Jesus pointed this out to Nicodemus in John 3 verse 3 –“Unless one is born again, He cannot see the Kingdom of God”. To be born again means to receive the eternal life of Jesus Christ and one of the benefits of receiving this life is great spiritual eye sight as implied by Jesus Christ. Living the Zoe kind of life here on earth separates us from the crowd, we see things differently. For example Stephen who only shared the gospel of Jesus was assaulted and stoned to death by council members – Acts 7:51-54. Stephen was born again, filled with the spirit of the Lord and all He did in that moment was look up to the heavens where He saw God and Jesus seated at His right Hand. Instead of mourn or cry out”Jesus why”, he had a wide smile on his face seeing and knowing where He was going. I have listened to men and women of God and I am amazed at their confidence in the Lord. The other day, I was speaking with my mum about something and she made a statement that sparked up so much faith and energy within me. Without a doubt, my mother has seen God, walked with God and experienced God and therefore because of that she was not fazed by the matter on ground one bit.
My dear friend, you and I can both agree that our vision does influence our actions. For example, if I am driving along a path and I see an obstruction ahead, chances are that I would try to find an alternate route to get to my destination quickly. And if there I do not see an alternate route, I may end up frustrated behind the obstruction. The same applies to our daily living, many times things that we see may have far more depth or lack the much depth than we perceive. The only way we are able to truly see things as they exist is through the lens powered by the God-life. More so, lenses that are powered by the God-life by eternal life only sees possibilities.
Another thing that Jesus Christ points out about living eternal life on this earth is in verse 8 – “The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people who are born of the Spirit“. There are so many layers to this verse and I sure can’t exhaust its exegesis. But from this verse we can see that the Spirit of God is responsible for giving believers this eternal life, those of us living this life are characterized or compared to the wind. Strength, speed and spontaneity are the adjectives I can think of as I think of the way Jesus describes us living the life filled with the Spirit of God. A close look at the life of Jesus Christ does depict or showcase these adjectives. The voice of Jesus Christ was loud in his time, He went about preaching the Good news but His movements were pretty much discrete. One time He is with the crowd, another time He has disappeared to a solitary place to be with the father. Furthermore, the devil thought he had Him, He thought that killing Jesus Christ on the cross would abort the mission to save humanity from sin. Unknown to the devil, Jesus Christ was moving like the wind. He and the whole world could hear Jesus proclaiming the good news but had no idea about the real plan to save humanity. This takes me back to I Corinthians chapter 2 verses 7-8 which I pondered upon for the longest time and spoke about as a guest on this podcast. This chapter tells us about the hidden wisdom that God has prepared for all of His children to utilize, to confuse the enemy but achieve and attain the height of Glory that He has made for us.
In summary, having eternal life starts here on earth with believing in Jesus Christ and accepting Him as Lord and savior of your life. It continues with the rejuvenation of your dead Spirit and senses by the Spirit of God and goes on with living triumphantly with the Kingdom of God in view always. This is the best kind of life to live and I implore you to receive this life today . Jesus is beckoning to you to recieve this life that He has paid for. And to my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, be encouraged to keep living this life with eternity in view. Fix your eyes on the glory set above just as Stephen did and may we all be rewarded beautifully in Jesus name.