WHAT TO DO?

The Apostle Paul’s great fear for his fellow-Christians was that they would be deceived by Satan from simple lives of devotion to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3). This explains why he taught us to focus on invisible, spiritual and eternal things rather than on visible, worldly and temporal things (2 Corinthians 4:18). In these biblically predicted perilous times of the last days, it is more important than ever for the Christian to avoid being distracted from things of eternal consequence by things without lasting spiritual significance.

When it comes to spiritual things, nothing is of more eternal consequence or comparable in importance to one’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus taught us that eternal life is only found in knowing “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] has sent” (John 17:3). As the Apostle John puts it in 1 John 5:12, “He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has no life.” The Apostle Paul even went as far as to say that all who live their lives to please themselves rather than Christ are “dead” while they “live” (1 Timothy 5:6).

Regardless of what you may think or believe, without a personal and life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, which results in a lifelong relationship to be daily cultivated with Christ, you have no life in the here-and-now. Furthermore, you have no hope of eternal life hereafter. How important then is it for you to come to know Christ and to spend the rest of your life daily cultivating an intimate relationship with Him? Nothing in all of life is more important, since life itself emanates from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul teaches in Colossians 3:4, Christ “is our life.”

It is here that the uniqueness of Christianity is clearly seen. Whereas other faiths are mere religions whose founders are dead or dying, Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. It is a relationship with its Founder, Jesus Christ, who is not dead, but risen from the dead and living in the world today. Moreover, as the Conqueror of death, Christ is able to give eternal life to all who come to Him. Consequently, our relationship with the resurrected Christ, which is initiated at our conversion, will continue forever, since we will live forever in the presence of the ever-living Christ.