I thought that some of the material in today’s study to be very challenging.
The following is a rather long quote from today’s study; but I think there could be a risk of unintentionally modifying the context – if I decided to pick bits and pieces: ” … Everything which is in Jesus, having been surrender to Him, has life – by the very fact of being in Him. It is not something added as an extraneous gift but something that is inherent.
Everything in Jesus lives and everything outside of Him – dies.
One writer explains it in this way: ‘Your money, if kept outside of Him and His purposes dies, dies because it has no purpose. Your deeds outside of Him also decay and die for they have no eternal purposes, hence no eternal life. Your relationships, including marriage relationships die if they are not in Him. They have no eternal meaning and hence no eternal life. [Marriage relationships, which are in Christ, may have eternal benefits - but the marriage contract - ends, when we die. It does not continue after death.] All is permanent, safe and secure in Him. Outside of Him nothing is permanent, safe and secure – In Adam all die.’ “
The verses selected for reading and meditation also contain some bits which are hard (well, for me, they are :) ) to understand.
I’ll include here, a subsection of those chosen by Selwyn, 1 Corinthians 15:22-18 (NLT): “Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.
After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For the Scriptures say, ‘God has put all things under his authority.’ (Of course, when it says ‘all things are under his authority,’ that does not include God himself, who gave Christ his authority.) Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere.”
The challenge for many, I think, is to accept the fact that good things done by people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus – have no eternal value. It doesn’t matter how much money an atheist gives to charity – it has no eternal value, for that person. Do you agree?