THIS WAS THE TITLE of a book which caught my eye recently in a bookshop. When I opened it, I discovered it was about eating healthily. The title was somewhat inaccurate.
Would we like to live for ever? At first consideration we might think that we would. After all, not many of us would choose to die. Life can be very good as long as we keep our health and have enough food and comfort and have good friends and family around us. But the fact is that as we get older life is not always sweetness and light. Our health can fail, our bodies begin to creak with age, our human relationships disappear or break down for various reasons.
What kind of world would we like to live in? The world we know today is hardly ideal. We don’t need to be reminded of the grinding poverty that besets many parts of the world; the worldwide problem of wars, disease and political and financial unrest; and the ever-present global threats of environmental collapse and weapons of mass destruction. Is this the kind of world in which you would like to live for ever?
However the Bible does speak of everlasting life. For example: ‘To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life’ (Romans 2:7).
Everlasting life will be given to those who believe in the saving work of the Lord Jesus, and act on that belief by being baptised and following him faithfully in their lives (Mark 16:16).
And we read in other parts of the Bible that the world in which they will live will also be changed. For example:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3–4).
This is just a snapshot of the future God has prepared for those who love Him. It isn’t just everlasting life that is promised. It is “eternal life,” a life in a perfected state in a perfected world. By reading God’s Word, the Bible, we can certainly learn “how to live for ever”.
Marion Buckler
