Throughout all the centuries since God created mankind, God's love has caused Him to have mercy on sinful mankind. Man's days on this earth may be short but through faith in Him we're promised that mercy for eternity.
Psalm 103:15-17. "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 16: For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. 17: But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;"
God's love wasn't restricted to one generation. He passes it on from one generation to the next. Our lives are temporary but God’s love is loyal and it's eternal.
God proved His love for us by sending His own Son to die for our sins.
John 3:16; "For God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son."
God gave us that example of His love and He also gives the Believer the Holy Spirit who enables us to show that kind of love to others, even in the hardest of times when we're faced with sorrow and pain and even rejection by our friends.
God’s love that forgives sins will one day wipe away every tear and right every wrong. His love is going to abolish death and furnish us with a home in heaven--this Psalm says, “from everlasting to everlasting.”
In the past few months, world events have graphically reminded us that our lives are fragile and painfully brief, but the Believer's story doesn't end at the grave and in judgment. We can take comfort in the fact that God’s love is eternal, and nothing can separate us from it.
Paul gave us a comforting passage on that in Romans 8:38-39. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39: Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Man was created an eternal being and before he sinned there was no death. Because of sin, our physical bodies will die. Our spirit, which is our true being, will live forever.
Even death, no matter if it comes by a slow disease or by a sudden attack, is just God's way of speeding us to our ultimate destination. The Believer is promised eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul said it so well in 2 Corinthians 4:16. "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."
Sometimes we're afraid of God's long range plans for us. At those times we need to have a longer, stronger view of eternity. Is eternity really of greater value than earthly existence? Yes it is, and we don't need to fear the future.
We sometimes sing "I know who holds the future and I know who holds my hand."
When we gather around the communion table we are there to obey Him in His request to remember His death on the cross. He said, "Do this in remembrance of Me." (Luke 22:19) What a privilege it is to refresh our minds on how Christ died in our place for our sins.