AN UNQUENCHABLE LIFE
An Australian Prime Minister, frustrated perhaps with the expectations placed upon him, was once heard to say that “life wasn’t meant to be easy”. He was attacked and derided because people wanted, even demanded, ease, as if it were a fundamental right. Indeed, for countless generations mankind has sought to lighten the burden of daily life in myriad clever or devious ways. But if we were ever to reach the elusive goal of endless ease, would we then have overcome everything that unsettles or burdens the human heart?
We seek ease, but it is a strange thing that, while we are easily able to imagine all manner of fears and afflictions, we cannot begin to imagine any actual circumstances that would lead to endless happiness and contentment. Whatever pictures we paint soon become wearisome and tedious. Why is this?
Perhaps it is because we tend to focus on the people we know, the things we do, the places we go, but not on the real nature of our life. You see, our life, from the moment of our conception, is dying. Like the sand in the hourglass, time is always running out and our death is ever nearer. This is the problem. We all know we will die, but we try to live as if it were not so. To rise above the sorrows and the struggles that swarm around us all, we need to make sense of, indeed, find the answer to, the looming fact of our death. Only then can we hope for real and lasting inner peace. Is there a way? Is there an answer?
Someone once posed this question: If God became a man, what would He be like? There are many ideas that you might offer in answer to that question, but one thing particularly stands out. Surely such a man would overcome death, He would not be impotent before death and death could not defeat Him.
Well, God has become a man, He has walked the earth with a human nature, He has suffered our sorrows and shared our griefs and, though in appearance He was merely a man, He proved Himself to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. How? He overcame death, He was not impotent before death and death could not, and did not, defeat Him. The One they called the prophet from Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, is God’s provision for eternal peace.
Even though Jesus healed the sick and the maimed and raised the dead, He died on a cross, not for Himself, but to bear our sins before the just wrath of God. He overcame that appalling death and rose again to share His unquenchable and death-conquering life with all who will turn and put their trust in Him.
Those who have sought and found His love and forgiveness, by the grace of God, share His glorious and undying life. Though sorrows may come their way, though sickness and sadness may be their lot, yet having a life that cannot die, they can learn to live with a deep joy and with true peace through it all.
Of course, everyone would want such a life, but few will pay the “cost” of repentance and submission to the glorious and loving headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. A great many people feel that it is too high a price. Is it? To cast aside the filthy rags of sin in order to be clothed like royalty? To give up your failed and bitter wisdom for the pure and peaceable wisdom of heaven? To forsake the shadowland of death for the radiant heights of unquenchable life?
No, the price is not too high, rather our nature is too rebellious and our heart is too hard. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Take time to stop and think. Take time to consider your life and your death. Heed the call of the Lord Jesus, seek Him for yourself, and find through Him eternal and unquenchable life.
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
