By definition, living
is the most personal thing known to us. Life, on the other
hand, can be the most cold and impersonal experience we know.
While living and life are essentially inseparable; the latter is
standard, but the former is optional. JESUS addressed this
very thing during an encounter with HIS followers:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life
..." This would seem like such an obvious
principle; but it never really dawns upon most folks that there
can be no living without life. Those who deny this of
course, only give evidence that the opposite is both possible
and real. Unless there come that severing of sin's
umbilical cord, and the spiritual swat of repentance forcing the
breath of HIS life into our dead lungs, we are doomed to a life
of death. "He
that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life
for MY sake shall find it." News of this
gospel prescription has circled the globe; yet today the
overwhelming masses lie strapped to the Devil's life support,
never to live, but to exist just long enough to die eternally.
"...Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what
ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body
than raiment?" Countless are the eternal
souls who spend their entire existence clamoring over their
temporal life here to the eternal detriment of living with HIM
now, and one day then. In spite of the blessed fact that
GOD cares for HIS own and commands us to refrain from the same,
multitudes still seek like Gentiles, regarding the
sparrows of HIS provision as extinct. Outside of CHRIST,
life can be defined in a myriad of ways. The wise of heart
however, by virtue of new birth, understand the distinction
between living and life.
"I
am come that they might have life, and that they might have it
more abundantly." Paul knew that the secret
to life, and living it abundantly
was bound to his personal relationship with JESUS CHRIST. Insert what you will in
Philippians 1:21 to replace CHRIST ... family, career,
dreams, friends, pleasure, money, ad-infinitum, ad-nauseum.
However, be mindful in doing so that it will also necessitate
replacing "gain" with loss.
What is it that you will gain on the day you die? Your
answer to that question will forever haunt you for good or bad.
"And that HE died for all, that they which
live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto HIM
which died for them, and rose again."