Life is good. My life is good. But I really mean that life itself is good.
Is your life good? It can be. Today.
Over the past several weeks, it seems like I have come to greater realization of the abundance of blessings in my life. Some were new ones that I am so thankful for, and some have been there all along but I’m just now starting to recognize and appreciate them. Truly, I thank God for these many blessings.
Adding to my thanksgiving is knowing where I’ve come from. If you know me or have read some of my blog posts, you’ll know that I went through a very difficult period in my life just 2 short years ago. In this struggle that was both emotional and physical, I nearly died. That is not an exaggeration—my body nearly failed me as I lost 40 pounds from a 170 pound frame that had only about 5 pounds to give. If you know me or have read my blog posts, you’ll also know that in the height of this trial and both the emotional and physical pain that coursed through my body on a daily, hourly, even on a continuous basis…in the worst moment, I prayed a very sincere prayer and asked if God would let me die and join Him in Heaven right then. He did not…He made me stay here. And through that I realized that He had purpose left for me, and that it was actually better for me and His kingdom for me to remain here for at least a little while longer. Additionally, I realized that He is my Father in Heaven and I am His son, and that if a son asks his father who loves him to come home, one of two things will happen: either the father will say yes and the son will come home, or the father will say no and come to where his son is. For me, it was the latter. I knew in the months that followed that my Father in Heaven had come to me in my cry to come to Him, that He was already there, and that He remains with me forever, on earth or in Heaven.
Life is good. In the land of the living.
God has faithfully restored my body to health in the months and years since the days described above. I feel healthier now than possibly ever before. He has reached into the pit and rescued me. I pray that many will see and fear the Lord and praise His name (Psalm 40:1-3). I pray that many will seek not just His restoring hand, but His face…intimate relationship with a true Friend, Savior, Father, Master, and Creator.
Through the trial, my spiritual restoration is eternal. And although I was physically restored, today I got some bad news from my doctor. It appears that my body has received irreconcilable damage from the disease that riddled my body 2 years ago, a non-communicable disease that is now under control, but that it appears I will never fully recover from. I don’t have to tell you that this was very hard to accept. But I can also tell you that even if the worst comes to me, life is good because of my Savior. In fact, the terrible news has inspired me to write to you today.
Life is good. Everlasting life is even better.
Adding to my thanksgiving is knowing where I’m going. Heaven. A place with no more crying, no pain (Rev 21:4). A place of absolute oneness with our fellow man, and absolute oneness with our Savior Jesus and Father God (see John 17). A oneness well beyond our imaginations of physical splendor with gold streets and perpetual sunshine and everything we love on this earth.
Life is good. Life with my Savior Jesus Christ is good.
It’s easy to see at this point that there is one common reason why life is good in the dichotomy of circumstances described above: Jesus Christ and a relationship with Him. Not merely knowledge of Him. Certainly salvation. But it doesn’t stop there—it is knowing Him and being with Him that makes life good. Knowing Him and being with Him makes us rejoice in great trials (James 1:2-5). Knowing Him and being with Him makes us rejoice in thanksgiving and praise in times of great blessing. Knowing Him and being with Him is the essence of anything and everything good in my life, in your life, and in our lives to come.
Life is good. In all circumstances, in all things.
I submit to you that life is good in and of itself, as it is the breath of God breathed on you and me. We live with His blessing of life everyday and don’t even realize it. Do you know that by being born and made alive by His hand, you now have the opportunity of eternal life in perfect love and oneness with an almighty God? That by being made alive, regardless of your choices thus far in life, you have the opportunity to choose Him right now and have an everlasting relationship with Him? That by being made alive, simply being born onto planet earth, you can now be a son of God? Life is good. In the worst circumstance, life is good. If you have a Savior.
There are 4 types of people:
- those without a relationship with a Savior who have terrible circumstances
- those without a relationship with a Savior who have great circumstances
- those with a relationship with a Savior who have terrible circumstances,
- those with a relationship with a Savior who have great circumstances.
For the latter two, life is certainly good. I have been in both situations and can attest that life with my Savior is good.
Now for the arguments about two different types of people. First, those who have no relationship with the Savior, but their circumstances are great. You might say, “Life is good for them. You just said their circumstances are great.” Indeed. So you are measuring the goodness in life by circumstances alone? Think about a man who is traveling down a river in a boat with those he most loves. It’s a beautiful day, perfect temperature, they have every type of food and drink they would like, and the mood is fun. But what this man doesn’t realize is that there is a waterfall a half-mile downstream, and if he doesn’t start rowing to shore right in this moment, he will never be able to overcome its current before reaching the falls. Would you say that life is good for this man? His immediate circumstances are certainly good. But in being so caught up in the immediate good things, he has failed to take care of himself or his family by looking ahead and mapping out the river…and he is leading all of them to their death. Now imagine that this man had been told of the falls by others and was even offered a map…maybe he even took it…but he never read it. Maybe he even flipped the map open once or twice, but never really studied it at all such that he could see the dangers ahead of him. We might call this man irresponsible. But the fact of the matter is that we are this man for most of our lives. We have been told of Heaven and Hell, we’ve been offered a Bible. Have we ever opened it to read it…have we studied it? Or are we so content with our “good lives” that nothing else seems to matter so much?
For the man who rejects God’s Word and Jesus Christ, life is not good. Life led to the eternal death of Hell. And once there, he would trade every good thing he ever had in this otherwise “good life” in order to avoid that final outcome. He would curse his life as being worthless and the cause of every eternal torment.
Now for the second argument: “What about those who have the worst circumstances, even if they have this “Savior” you claim to know? What about those who are utterly beaten, broken, raped, or any other worst thing you can imagine, but are still living through it. Is life good for them?” Indeed, their circumstances are far from anything good. My heart feels anger and it breaks for those in situations like that. This one is tougher. I’ll let you know that my heart has recently been stirred for those in just that situation, especially those who do not yet know my Savior. There are literally millions of children as young as 7 years old around the world who are slaves to sex-trafficking. These girls are taken captive and initiated through daily beatings, starvation, and daily raping by multiple men. Once their will to fight is broken, if they do not kill themselves first, they are placed into life-long sex-slavery, receiving multiple gruesome abortions per year until they are rendered barren or ultimately die of an AIDS related disease before reaching middle-aged adulthood. This is one of the worst circumstances I can think of. For them, life turned bad. But what if they come to know a Savior who gives everlasting life in Heaven, and beyond that, He brings His presence to them right where they are in this moment? What about the children of these women who escaped abortion and have been rescued out to live abundant lives with this Savior? When these women see their daughters rescued, and even moreso when they themselves come to know a real Savior, in Jesus Christ, I tell you wholeheartedly: life is good again.
You may still argue with my paragraph above. But I want you to know that I have worked with an organization called As Our Own that rescues the daughters of such enslaved women. We have seen great transformation in the lives of these precious little girls who have been rescued from the same plight of their mothers into a loving family and into the body of Christ. I cannot convey to you what that looks and feels like…I am not capable of describing to you the joy of seeing it with your own eyes. And these women still enslaved have light in their eyes again, if only a glimmer at the start. I have seen the eyes of many enslaved women—as part of our work, I have been to the brothels! I can tell you that death looked back at me as I made eye contact with the vast majority of these women. But in the eyes of a woman with a little girl being cared for by As Our Own, there was the only light I could see in that terribly dark place.
And even for those who have not come to know our Savior, life in and of itself in the beginning was good. For they were born into the opportunity to have eternal life in Heaven, regardless of circumstances here on earth. Even for the man in the spiritual boat who rejected and refused to listen to God’s word—the map—whose life turned into a road to Hell…even for this man, life was not the bad thing. His life was originally good…not because of circumstances, but because of his opportunity to choose to be with God forever. So we see that circumstances do not change the goodness of life. The goodness of life is found only in our Savior Jesus Christ. While we were innocent children, life was good, the opportunity still in front of us to choose Him. Once we have chosen, life then becomes supremely good or life becomes our curse to Hell. However, so long as we are still alive, we have that choice! We can choose for life to be good, and for our lives to be good, this very day. Even the man who was trapped in the current and only feet from the falls could cry out to a Savior. Not a common savior or simply a good Samaritan—no, he could not be helped in the physical world at that point. His salvation would require a supernatural event…the river would need to stop flowing or he would need to be plucked out of the boat by some supernatural force. The blood and resurrection of Christ, the Son of God, has this supernatural power that we need in order to be saved by grace into oneness with a perfectly holy God. There is no natural antidote to our sin. There is no logical path. We require something supernatural, something beyond ourselves to be able to be one with our holy God and Savior. The fact is this: all of those other people who tried to hand this man a map and tell him of the waterfall—they only know because they themselves were in that same boat. They know because they themselves had to cry out to a Savior with hope of rescue, supernatural rescue. Not one of them were in a situation in which by their own strength they could overcome the current of sin. No, each one of us has come to the point of the waterfall, gripped in sin, hopeless of rowing our way to Heaven’s safe haven. Once there, those who called on the name of Jesus have been saved, and in reply we now seek to tell those who have not yet come to know the fierceness of the current of sin, the depth of the fall to Hell, or the glorious relationship with our Savior when we do call upon Him.
This is your opportunity. This is your future. This is your present. You have the choice. I pray that you choose the good life right here and now, and the good life that is everlasting. I pray that you come to know the life that is good with Jesus our Savior. Amen.
Is your life good? It can be. Today.
Over the past several weeks, it seems like I have come to greater realization of the abundance of blessings in my life. Some were new ones that I am so thankful for, and some have been there all along but I’m just now starting to recognize and appreciate them. Truly, I thank God for these many blessings.
Adding to my thanksgiving is knowing where I’ve come from. If you know me or have read some of my blog posts, you’ll know that I went through a very difficult period in my life just 2 short years ago. In this struggle that was both emotional and physical, I nearly died. That is not an exaggeration—my body nearly failed me as I lost 40 pounds from a 170 pound frame that had only about 5 pounds to give. If you know me or have read my blog posts, you’ll also know that in the height of this trial and both the emotional and physical pain that coursed through my body on a daily, hourly, even on a continuous basis…in the worst moment, I prayed a very sincere prayer and asked if God would let me die and join Him in Heaven right then. He did not…He made me stay here. And through that I realized that He had purpose left for me, and that it was actually better for me and His kingdom for me to remain here for at least a little while longer. Additionally, I realized that He is my Father in Heaven and I am His son, and that if a son asks his father who loves him to come home, one of two things will happen: either the father will say yes and the son will come home, or the father will say no and come to where his son is. For me, it was the latter. I knew in the months that followed that my Father in Heaven had come to me in my cry to come to Him, that He was already there, and that He remains with me forever, on earth or in Heaven.
Life is good. In the land of the living.
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. - Psalm 27:13
God has faithfully restored my body to health in the months and years since the days described above. I feel healthier now than possibly ever before. He has reached into the pit and rescued me. I pray that many will see and fear the Lord and praise His name (Psalm 40:1-3). I pray that many will seek not just His restoring hand, but His face…intimate relationship with a true Friend, Savior, Father, Master, and Creator.
Through the trial, my spiritual restoration is eternal. And although I was physically restored, today I got some bad news from my doctor. It appears that my body has received irreconcilable damage from the disease that riddled my body 2 years ago, a non-communicable disease that is now under control, but that it appears I will never fully recover from. I don’t have to tell you that this was very hard to accept. But I can also tell you that even if the worst comes to me, life is good because of my Savior. In fact, the terrible news has inspired me to write to you today.
Life is good. Everlasting life is even better.
Adding to my thanksgiving is knowing where I’m going. Heaven. A place with no more crying, no pain (Rev 21:4). A place of absolute oneness with our fellow man, and absolute oneness with our Savior Jesus and Father God (see John 17). A oneness well beyond our imaginations of physical splendor with gold streets and perpetual sunshine and everything we love on this earth.
Life is good. Life with my Savior Jesus Christ is good.
It’s easy to see at this point that there is one common reason why life is good in the dichotomy of circumstances described above: Jesus Christ and a relationship with Him. Not merely knowledge of Him. Certainly salvation. But it doesn’t stop there—it is knowing Him and being with Him that makes life good. Knowing Him and being with Him makes us rejoice in great trials (James 1:2-5). Knowing Him and being with Him makes us rejoice in thanksgiving and praise in times of great blessing. Knowing Him and being with Him is the essence of anything and everything good in my life, in your life, and in our lives to come.
Life is good. In all circumstances, in all things.
I submit to you that life is good in and of itself, as it is the breath of God breathed on you and me. We live with His blessing of life everyday and don’t even realize it. Do you know that by being born and made alive by His hand, you now have the opportunity of eternal life in perfect love and oneness with an almighty God? That by being made alive, regardless of your choices thus far in life, you have the opportunity to choose Him right now and have an everlasting relationship with Him? That by being made alive, simply being born onto planet earth, you can now be a son of God? Life is good. In the worst circumstance, life is good. If you have a Savior.
There are 4 types of people:
- those without a relationship with a Savior who have terrible circumstances
- those without a relationship with a Savior who have great circumstances
- those with a relationship with a Savior who have terrible circumstances,
- those with a relationship with a Savior who have great circumstances.
For the latter two, life is certainly good. I have been in both situations and can attest that life with my Savior is good.
Now for the arguments about two different types of people. First, those who have no relationship with the Savior, but their circumstances are great. You might say, “Life is good for them. You just said their circumstances are great.” Indeed. So you are measuring the goodness in life by circumstances alone? Think about a man who is traveling down a river in a boat with those he most loves. It’s a beautiful day, perfect temperature, they have every type of food and drink they would like, and the mood is fun. But what this man doesn’t realize is that there is a waterfall a half-mile downstream, and if he doesn’t start rowing to shore right in this moment, he will never be able to overcome its current before reaching the falls. Would you say that life is good for this man? His immediate circumstances are certainly good. But in being so caught up in the immediate good things, he has failed to take care of himself or his family by looking ahead and mapping out the river…and he is leading all of them to their death. Now imagine that this man had been told of the falls by others and was even offered a map…maybe he even took it…but he never read it. Maybe he even flipped the map open once or twice, but never really studied it at all such that he could see the dangers ahead of him. We might call this man irresponsible. But the fact of the matter is that we are this man for most of our lives. We have been told of Heaven and Hell, we’ve been offered a Bible. Have we ever opened it to read it…have we studied it? Or are we so content with our “good lives” that nothing else seems to matter so much?
For the man who rejects God’s Word and Jesus Christ, life is not good. Life led to the eternal death of Hell. And once there, he would trade every good thing he ever had in this otherwise “good life” in order to avoid that final outcome. He would curse his life as being worthless and the cause of every eternal torment.
Now for the second argument: “What about those who have the worst circumstances, even if they have this “Savior” you claim to know? What about those who are utterly beaten, broken, raped, or any other worst thing you can imagine, but are still living through it. Is life good for them?” Indeed, their circumstances are far from anything good. My heart feels anger and it breaks for those in situations like that. This one is tougher. I’ll let you know that my heart has recently been stirred for those in just that situation, especially those who do not yet know my Savior. There are literally millions of children as young as 7 years old around the world who are slaves to sex-trafficking. These girls are taken captive and initiated through daily beatings, starvation, and daily raping by multiple men. Once their will to fight is broken, if they do not kill themselves first, they are placed into life-long sex-slavery, receiving multiple gruesome abortions per year until they are rendered barren or ultimately die of an AIDS related disease before reaching middle-aged adulthood. This is one of the worst circumstances I can think of. For them, life turned bad. But what if they come to know a Savior who gives everlasting life in Heaven, and beyond that, He brings His presence to them right where they are in this moment? What about the children of these women who escaped abortion and have been rescued out to live abundant lives with this Savior? When these women see their daughters rescued, and even moreso when they themselves come to know a real Savior, in Jesus Christ, I tell you wholeheartedly: life is good again.
You may still argue with my paragraph above. But I want you to know that I have worked with an organization called As Our Own that rescues the daughters of such enslaved women. We have seen great transformation in the lives of these precious little girls who have been rescued from the same plight of their mothers into a loving family and into the body of Christ. I cannot convey to you what that looks and feels like…I am not capable of describing to you the joy of seeing it with your own eyes. And these women still enslaved have light in their eyes again, if only a glimmer at the start. I have seen the eyes of many enslaved women—as part of our work, I have been to the brothels! I can tell you that death looked back at me as I made eye contact with the vast majority of these women. But in the eyes of a woman with a little girl being cared for by As Our Own, there was the only light I could see in that terribly dark place.
And even for those who have not come to know our Savior, life in and of itself in the beginning was good. For they were born into the opportunity to have eternal life in Heaven, regardless of circumstances here on earth. Even for the man in the spiritual boat who rejected and refused to listen to God’s word—the map—whose life turned into a road to Hell…even for this man, life was not the bad thing. His life was originally good…not because of circumstances, but because of his opportunity to choose to be with God forever. So we see that circumstances do not change the goodness of life. The goodness of life is found only in our Savior Jesus Christ. While we were innocent children, life was good, the opportunity still in front of us to choose Him. Once we have chosen, life then becomes supremely good or life becomes our curse to Hell. However, so long as we are still alive, we have that choice! We can choose for life to be good, and for our lives to be good, this very day. Even the man who was trapped in the current and only feet from the falls could cry out to a Savior. Not a common savior or simply a good Samaritan—no, he could not be helped in the physical world at that point. His salvation would require a supernatural event…the river would need to stop flowing or he would need to be plucked out of the boat by some supernatural force. The blood and resurrection of Christ, the Son of God, has this supernatural power that we need in order to be saved by grace into oneness with a perfectly holy God. There is no natural antidote to our sin. There is no logical path. We require something supernatural, something beyond ourselves to be able to be one with our holy God and Savior. The fact is this: all of those other people who tried to hand this man a map and tell him of the waterfall—they only know because they themselves were in that same boat. They know because they themselves had to cry out to a Savior with hope of rescue, supernatural rescue. Not one of them were in a situation in which by their own strength they could overcome the current of sin. No, each one of us has come to the point of the waterfall, gripped in sin, hopeless of rowing our way to Heaven’s safe haven. Once there, those who called on the name of Jesus have been saved, and in reply we now seek to tell those who have not yet come to know the fierceness of the current of sin, the depth of the fall to Hell, or the glorious relationship with our Savior when we do call upon Him.
This is your opportunity. This is your future. This is your present. You have the choice. I pray that you choose the good life right here and now, and the good life that is everlasting. I pray that you come to know the life that is good with Jesus our Savior. Amen.
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