Craig Clouston

Forever!

But he who feeds on this bread will live forever.
John 6:58
For whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Jude 1:13

“So you’re telling me that when I die I’ll continue to live, not in physical form, but live nonetheless?” Jack could see Stan’s skepticism. “And you believe that?” Stan asked.
“To the best of my ability,” was Jack’s honest answer. “Look, Stan, I admit that I don’t fully understand everything the term forever means, but Scripture says that we will live forever in heaven or hell. I believe that.”
Stan thought about that for a minute and then said, “I don’t know if I can wrap my mind around that enough to believe it.”
“You can’t wrap your mind around the things of God, Stan,” Jack tried to explain. “God is so much bigger than us. Just ask Him for the faith to believe now instead of trying to figure it all out before you accept His offer of salvation.”
Stan was unmoved.
“Look, Stan, I’m just saying it requires faith to believe in something we can’t categorically prove here and now. I’m also saying that I believe even though I have some questions about how forever actually works. Forever is a term we really don’t understand. But not understanding it completely has no effect on the truth that we will live forever.”

†

We tend to fear things outside our control, disbelieving what we don’t understand. We live from day to day, taking life as it comes. We’re not acquainted with more than a temporal existence, so it’s hard to grasp the nature of eternity.
Trying to completely understand eternity is like trying to remember what it was like breathing amniotic fluid. We know it happened; yet we don’t understand it much, if at all.
The word forever conjures thoughts of living with physical, emotional, or mental limitations for the rest of time. But throughout eternity there will be no curse, and those limits will cease to exist.
Faith requires belief in an Infinite Someone bigger than our finite mind truly understands. Our not understanding forever does not make it untrue.

Prayer

“Lord, give me faith to believe in forever so that my choices here are based on where I want to spend all that time. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”