Let me draw a line tonight between two words most people think are the same: existing and living. Everybody breathing exists. But not everybody who exists is truly alive. There is a difference, and it is the difference between heaven and hell.
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing…” (John 6:63, KJV)
You can be alive and still be dead
The Bible says a person can be walking around, working, laughing, and be “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), “alienated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18). That is existence without life, child of God. The flesh is running, but the spirit is a corpse. That is not what God made you for.
Life has a name
Because life is not a thing: life is a Person. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). You cross from death into life one way: “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and… is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). And it grieves Him when people won’t come: “ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). The bread is set on the table; the invitation is open: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).
Come and live
And when you come, He does not just get you to heaven someday: He fills you now: rivers of living water flow out (John 7:38), the Spirit indwells you, and He makes you a witness (Acts 1:8). So stop settling for existence. Come to Jesus, be born from above, and start living: real life, eternal life, abundant life. Glory to God.
Related Teaching
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)
Watch the teachingNew verse by verse studies go out every week on YouTube, King James Version, with the passage on the screen. Subscribe to The Prevailing Word of God, taught by John Kempf of Melbourne, Florida.