So that was God's plan from the beginning...that man would live forever. If Adam and Eve hadn't sinned in the Garden of Eden they would have lived forever in that garden. They would have tended the garden and known the Lord in a direct and personal way. But consider this: Adam and Eve were created beings that were placed on a created world under a created sun. All of these creations have a material quality that tends toward ultimate destruction. Barring replacement (possible to God, of course) the sun would eventually cool and the material world would lose its source of light and life. It appears that Satan has won when he successfully deceives the original couple to disobey God. But God is always one step ahead of Satan, like a chess master, thinking ahead of his opponent. And God knows that the ultimate eternal life is spiritual in nature...to be directly in His presence in spiritual form...without even the veil of a created or material environment. So man's failure to originally obey God leads to an ultimate plan to provide mankind with spiritual life that cannot be destroyed. This plan unfolds first through an individual (Abraham) and then through a family (Jacob) then through a nation (Israel) and ultimately made available to all people, everywhere (including you and me). God has turned the defeat Adam and Eve experienced around for an ultimate victory to complete God's original plan that man could live forever in a form and in a place that is beyond destruction and beyond corruption.
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But, perhaps most interestingly of all, He doesn't force anyone to go there. For some...for many...this life is all they opt for. To live out their days under the sun and across the seasons and the stages of human life. But this is a short life and not the life God originally planned for man. The apparent defeat that Satan achieved in the Garden of Eden was reversed for all men when God's Son defeated Satan through a life of perfect obedience and total sacrifice that was victoriously crowned with a death that was transcended by resurrection to life. Jesus is both the perfecter of our faith and the pioneer of our path to that eternal life.
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But the key that turns the lock leading to life forever lies with you! You must believe and then you, too, will live forever!
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John 6:47
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. [Jesus speaking]
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blessings that you might believe,
Rob Smith
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