The last six years have made me very aware that I am mortal. Without going into particulars, suffice it to say many of those ailments I listened to shut-ins and hospitalized members tell me about for years are a present reality. I’ve had more than a few procedures that were classified as “minor surgeries,” but you know what minor surgery is, don’t you? Minor Surgery is surgery they do on someone else!

As I said, I visited with lots of folks who have experienced the ailments and maladies that have now beset me. I prayed with them and tried to encourage them with God’s promises that He has recorded in His Word. Now I find myself needing those prayers and encouragement, and that is not the role in which I expected to find myself.

I guess I should not be too surprised. I have known all along that the cumulative effect of sin in this world is devastating. Sin is what brought death, and that often comes in bits and pieces, chipping away at our all too mortal bodies and, indeed, all of creation.

Isaiah 51:6 “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies.”

That is the reality that we don’t like to think about, but sometimes it is thrust upon us. And I think it is good for us to recognize our mortality. It helps us keep things in the proper perspective. While this life and this world may be all we have known and experienced, it is not all there is.

1 Corinthians 2:9 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”

That is my future. Guaranteed. Not because of me or who I am or what I have done. Not because I was a pastor or because I tried to do my best. That future is assured because of Jesus and only because of Jesus. He paid for my sin. He purchased my redemption. He defeated death and the grave by rising from the dead. And He has gone to prepare a place for me. That is what I am counting on. That is the hope that sustains me through life.

I need to keep things in that proper perspective. A passage that helps me to do that is Romans 14:8. “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

The one who was triumphant over the grave, who rose with a glorified body, has assured us that we will share in that victory in eternity.

Philippians 3:21 “…by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

This world and those in it will come to an end. That is the consequence of sin. But for those who are in Christ Jesus, those who have put their faith and confidence in Him and Him alone, there is something far superior in your future.

Earlier I quoted part of Isaiah 51:6. Here is another of God’s amazing promises in the last part of that verse:

“But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail.”

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.