"Stages of Life"

Victory Can Be Yours!

Article #51 – “Stages of Life”

               These devotions have been designed to point to Jesus Christ for salvation or for growth in Him.  This one is for those who have believed in Him.  For every person there are several stages of life to go through.  Try to keep this list in mind as we attempt to see what the Bible has to say about each of these ten scenarios.  Some stages are as follows:

1.     Born a sinner separated from God.

2.     The sinner chooses to believe in Jesus who bore our sins on the cross.

3.     Believer chooses to be a follower of Jesus.

4.     Believer loses his life on this earth and begins eternal life with God. 

5.     Believer goes before the Judgment seat of Christ.

6.     Believer remains in heaven until the second coming of Christ to set up His kingdom on earth.

7.     Thousand year reign of Christ on earth.

8.     The defeat of Satan.

9.     The Great White Throne judgment.

10.  Purging of the old earth and begin the new heaven and earth for eternity.

We will begin at the beginning of a person’s life, your life or my life.  Sin and separation from God began at birth.  We had no choice because of Adam’s act of disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden.  From that point on, all born of the seed of man or the seed of Adam are born into sin and thereby separated from God.  “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12)  When we are born we suddenly find ourselves in a terrible situation.  We begin our worldly adventure separated from God, slaves to sin and can do absolutely nothing about it by our own merits.  We are lost and bound for eternal destruction.  We are bound to Satan for he is the ruler of this world.  We could do nothing about it but someone could. 

“For God so loved the world that, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)  Why did He do this; because He loved the world (people) so much.  We did not have a path of reconciliation available by our own efforts but by the efforts of God, the ultimate sacrifice, the substitutionary death of His Son.  He gave his life for us to pay the price for our sin.  “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:21, 22)  The only thing the sinner must do to be reconciled to God is to simply believe in Jesus as the Scripture states, “whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Some think that is just too easy and call it easy-believism.  But remember what Jesus suffered to accomplish God’s plan of redemption.   That was not easy!

That covers the first two stages.  We first have a physical birth into a life of sin.  Secondly, we are born into a spiritual life reconciled to God, if we believe in Jesus.  “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)

You, too, can have victory in Jesus!  Next week, what is life all about following the new spiritual birth?

Lowell Parrish