The Life Cycle of Death Part 1

The Life Cycle of Death

                The world we are living in is death. For unbelievers, their very life is death. For believers, they are dead to that death, but filled with the life of God. So to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Each and every disciple of Christ must be dead to this world, and the world must be dead to them. I thought about the theoretical life cycle of an unbeliever and a believer and both are filled with death.

	Believer	Unbeliever
Birth	Both are dead in sin. "Believer" is covered by parent's faith
Coming of Age	Salvation and Seeking God. Eternal Life.	Continual death in sin. Condemnation.
(Marriage)	Death to self	Dead already
(Children)	Bringing another sinner into this world.
Death	Life eternal	Death eternal

And so you see, life on earth for a believer or unbeliever is death on the outside, but the inside is what is different. The believer has life within, the eternal life of God, and has died to this flesh. The unbeliever is living in the flesh and therefore is already dead inside, the death inside will sooner or later reaps spiritual death.

Birth is death. What make the difference in the child is the faith of the parents, which will sanctify them (that is, if they obey and stay under the covering and authority of their parents! That is why children are required to obey) until they come of age to make the decisions – broad way, easy life, temporal glory (eternal suffering), or narrow way, hard life, temporal suffering (eternal glory!). Everything in the believer’s child’s life before will climax into this one decision – will I choose Christ, or will I choose the world.

I am not saying if the child is not saved then he will never be saved. God has a way of apprehending His chosen people, but no one can take for granted God’s election.

2 Peter 1:10-19  ¹⁰ Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; ¹¹for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Even so, by choosing Christ, the child must no longer obey his parents. “What???”, you say. Listen closely so be sure of what I am saying – the child obeys, the saved child submits. Submission is infinitely greater than obedience. Obedience can be done out of the flesh. Sinful and carnal soldiers are capable of obeying their officers and lieutenants. Submission is greater. Obedience is an outward act. Submission is an inward spirit. Submission requires the Holy Spirit. God never requires a child to submit because a child has not yet experienced the grace of God. A little toddler does not know what “dying to self” is. That is why God commands a believing mother to submit to the father who in turn must submit to God. The wife’s submission does not depend on the husband’s submission and the husband’s submission does not depend on the wife’s submission. Each will be judged according to his own work. The child who has come of age is no longer sanctified by the parents’ faith – he must now choose. He must choose to be baptized into the faith, so put behind the childish things of the past, and embrace the hope and future in Christ. He must become Bar Mitzvah, or Bat Mitzvah, a son and daughter of the commandment, and even more, a son and daughter of God by his own faith.

God has no spiritual grandchildren. Every child of age must come to God but his own faith, and be required to give an account to God for his own actions.  Each and every child must choose to walk the narrow way, to become a man or woman of God, in spite of living in an age where distractions abound, the world is calling out your name, and the computer, television, ipod, iphone, ipad, walkman, facebook, twitter, all seem to be screaming out to you. Only when the life of God becomes life in you then you can choose the greater, which is God, which is Christ, which is eternal life forevermore. Choose – you cannot have both. Either you are a child of God or a child of the Devil. Either you are dead to sin or dead in sin. Either you are a slave of God, or a slave to Satan, slave to the world, slave to your-self, slave to sickness, and slave to sin! 

So choose the greater. Choose life. And then you will have the grace of God in your life so you can submit to your parents, and not just obey. Faith in you will rise up, and works will be the fruit of the inward perfection and faith. God will still continue to sanctify you. Your spirit is perfect, yes, and saved. But the inward perfection will need to become an outward reality, so you can be saved to the uttermost. That is sanctification. Justification is when you are freed from sins and given new life in Christ. Sanctification work still needs to be done – and don’t worry. You aren’t finished with yet; no one is finished with yet. When Christ takes you home, then your perfection is complete. So go on believing, and you will go on being a son of God, and go on having eternal life.

^{Hebrews 7:25} Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.