image 28.
reflection.
Our life is dependent upon dead things. Ever think about that? Unless we are going to eat the food right off of the vine we are consuming things that were once alive and growing - but are now dead.
With today's arrival of spring, we are reminded that new life is upon us. springing up all around us. the shift in the weather allows for the cycle of life to begin anew again. death is giving way to life right before our eyes.
the perennials are coming up, the trees are budding, seed-bearing plants will soon be in bloom.
it's amazing if you stop to think about it, isn't it? Nutrients from the earth give life to what once was not living.
consumable plants and vegetation springs to life, grow to full potential, and in many cases fall off the vine and dies, thus making it useful for food, which gives life to living creatures. what an amazing cycle of death to life!
Jesus teaches us how to die - so that we may truly live.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
~ Matthew 10:39
it all starts with a seed. planting seeds brings about life. What seeds are we planting though?
Are we who we say we are?
Willing to put to death the sinful things?
Death is the Engine of Life.
funny how the cycle goes, isn't it? the new spring serves as our reminder that we are not greater than our own mortality. we need a form of death to self, before we can truly live.
thoughts.
there is this shrine over in Japan - called the Ise Shrine. it's a 10,000 year old shrine made out of wood... it is not recognized as a historical landmark because it made of wood. so how has something made of wood withstood the test of time? because it gets rebuilt every 30 years - to the exact scale. this has been the plan for this shrine developed from the beginning. the shrine is always new, recycled old made new again… and again… and again. (2 Corinthians 5:17). the Ise Shrine preserves itself.
Our skin is the same way - it dies off - new skin comes every 30 days. our very skin is a cycle of death to life - because fresh, new life is best. it’s the skins way of PRESERVING itself.
the same was meant for not only our bodies but our souls.
Jesus was in the business of preserving life. how did he do that? salvation.
as we near the time when Jesus willingly went to the cross, may we come to remember and trust that Jesus saves.
do you want to preserve your life?
scripture.
Forget the former things
do not focus on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; are you aware of it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in dead lands.
I provide water in the desert
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
~Isaiah 43:18-20 (adapted from NIV)
you were dead. become alive.
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