At the recent passing of a friend's wife, I was particularly moved by his summation of his wife's battle with cancer. She was a young mother of four, one just a baby. The day after her death, he posted this comment to Facebook:
"When people say she lost a battle with cancer I disagree..My wife didn't loose a battle with cancer, cancer lost the battle with my wife. When the body dies, cancer can't live anymore but my wife had the greatest victory of all and that's to walk with the lord...Cancer died; my wife lived."
For the believer, death is the death of death and the beginning of life eternal.
"Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25, NASB). "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? ... thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
Born in 2001, Roberto Salazar was a beautiful baby. “He never cried,” said his mother. “He would sleep 23-24 hrs a day. He never cried to eat, never cried that his diaper was itching.” By three months of age, though, his parents knew something was wrong. He would eat, was extremely suseptable to overheating, and once he began teething, he began biting his tongue and cheeks to the point of mutilation.
Pain—that sensation we all long to avoid—is actually a great gift from God. It’s pain that lets us know something is wrong. It’s pain that motivates us to turn from dangerous behaviors. Without the help and guidance of pain we would all surely die.
If you or anyone you know has ever traveled to a third-world country you are no doubt familiar with the warning, “Don’t drink the water!” Drinking contaminated water can result in serious illness. Travelers to Mexico even have a name for it—Montezuma’s Revenge. The horrific truth is, water-born diseases kill 1.4 million children per year.
Much of the world’s water supply is “deadly." While organizations like Water.org work to bring clean healthy water to children and families around the world, we—the Church—are called to bring “living water” to the souls of all who have yet to drink from Jesus’ life giving stream.
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life”( John 4:13-14).