“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, you must immediately cut it off and cast it from you: it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, rather than having two hands and two feet to have been cast into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, you must immediately pluck it out and cast it from you: it is better for you to enter life one-eyed rather than having two eyes to have been cast into the Gehenna of fire.” Matthew 18:8-9 The One New Man Bible
The day that our physical body ceases to breathe, and our spirit passes into eternity, is what we refer to as “death.” But in the above verses, Jesus refers to this as “entering life.” In other words, what we would call “death,” Jesus calls “life.” Think about that a moment!
Jesus has an eternal perspective. He knows that our true life begins after our physical death. In these verses, He is encouraging us to not lose sight of what is really important – eternity! His encouragement is not to allow the snares and entanglements of this temporal world keep us from our true life – the life that we were born for. We were born for, created for, a life of eternity with our Precious Heavenly Father. Before the foundation of the world, God planned to reconcile us to Himself through the blood of Jesus Christ so that we might live with HIM in all of eternity!
We, on the other hand, tend to have a temporal, earthly perspective. We believe ourselves to be physical beings having spiritual experiences. Because of that, we see the ending of our physical bodies as “death” and actually fear that day. In fact, the opposite is true; we are spiritual beings who are having a physical experience. Once this physical experience is ended, we enter true “life.” Jesus implores us to take His eternal perspective, so that we will not be tripped up and miss the “life” that we were born for.
That caused me to wonder, what other things do we call “death” that Jesus would call “life?” Another Biblical example is persecution or martyrdom; we would call that a tragic “death,” and Jesus calls it a victorious “life.” (see Revelation 2 & 3) What else, I wonder, do we call “death” that Jesus calls “life?!”
This devotion seems appropriate today.