God Issues Today: "Singing Forever"

Author, educator and commentator Dr. James Denison has been pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas since June, 1998. Prior to that, he was pastor at churches in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as Midland (at First Baptist) and Mansfield, Texas.

People who meet my wife often say that I "outkicked my coverage." I can only agree. Apparently President Obama feels the same way about Michelle. At a recent event honoring Stevie Wonder, Mr. Obama admitted, "I think it's fair to say that had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me." The story in today's New York Times reminds us that we affect more people than we know, that our deeds outlive us.

But our immortality is more real even than our legacy. We have been considering C. S. Lewis's claim in The Weight of Glory that "you have never talked to a mere mortal." Each of us will live forever with God or separated from him. If Jesus is your Lord, in the moment you gave your life to him you received eternal life. Jesus told the grieving Martha, "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25-26). But it's hard for us to set aside our fear that death is forever, that the world we can see is all there is. It's human nature to fear what we cannot see or experience or quantify.

[Friday] I countered that fear with the assertion that you and I have already died once. We have passed from the only world we knew to a world we could not possibly imagine. If we survived that experience once, we need not fear surviving it again. What death am I describing? Years ago I discovered an analogy by Norman Vincent Peale which has helped me greatly.

A child is conceived and begins to grow in her mother's womb. As weeks become months, she begins to sense her surroundings with growing appreciation and comfort. She is warm, well-fed, protected. If she could process conscious thoughts, she could not imagine a better world than hers.

Then the unthinkable happens. Horrific pain thrusts her out of the only world she has ever known. But immediately she is taken by loving arms and surrounded by smiling faces thrilled to welcome her into their world. She begins to adapt and grow. Months become years, as she matures into childhood and then adulthood. She marries and has children of her own. She cannot imagine a world better than hers.

Then it happens again. Events beyond her control thrust her out of the only world she knows. But once again she is taken by loving arms and surrounded by smiling faces thrilled to welcome her into their world. And she is home forever. So it will be for all who know Jesus as Lord—our greatest fear leads to our greatest joy. So it can be with anything we fear today, when we put it into the transforming hands of God. What fear has found you this morning?