Everlasting Life

By Apostle Aje Pelser

Some mediations about everlasting life that will propel our thinking into God’s Perspective.

Count the Stars!

Gen 15:5  Then He brought him outside and said, 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'

Gen 15:6  And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

 

The Lord knows how many stars He made. We don’t!

The Blessing of Knowing God created the heavens and the Earth

Just looking at the night sky is a blessing in itself. Studying astronomy reveals so many astounding facts that glorify God even more.

 “When you look up into the night sky, it seems like you can see a lot of stars. There are about 2,500 stars visible to the naked eye at any one point at any one time on the Earth, and 5,800-8,000 total visible stars. But this is a very tiny fraction of the stars the Milky Way is thought to have! Astronomers estimate that there are 200 billion to 400 billion stars contained within the Milky Way”

 

http://www.universetoday.com/22380/how-many-stars-are-in-the-milky-way/

When God told Abraham to count the stars and promised him descendents like the stars he did not even have a son yet! Our best scientific efforts are not even able to count all the stars in the universe! God is so big and awesome in His creativity so we should stop limiting Him in our minds.

Jesus is the High Priest according to the power of an endless life

Heb 7:15  And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest

Heb 7:16  who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.

Heb 7:17  For He testifies: 'YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.'

He lives to make intercession for us.

Heb 7:22  by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

Heb 7:23  Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing.

Heb 7:24  But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.

Heb 7:25  Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Heb 7:26  For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;

Death is working in us, but life in you

2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

2Co 4:8  We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

2Co 4:9  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—

2Co 4:10  always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

2Co 4:11  For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

2Co 4:12  So then death is working in us, but life in you.

Any suffering and sacrifice for Christ releases everlasting life in others. The Apostolic Orange sermon that Apostle Andre Pelser preaches is worth further meditation.

The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2Co 4:13  And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, 'I BELIEVED AND THEREFORE I SPOKE,' we also believe and therefore speak,

2Co 4:14  knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.

2Co 4:15  For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

2Co 4:16  Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

2Co 4:17  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

2Co 4:18  while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

 

Seeing yourself as the Centre of the Universe or Seeing the BIG picture.

Early Astronomers view the Universe from the perspective that the sun, moon and stars revolved around the earth. But they could not figure out the “wanderers” the stars (actually planets) that changed their position seemingly randomly. Planets revolving around the Sun is the clear explanation, thus changing their position with regards to the earth, but maintaining a fixed orbit around the sun. We are orbiting through the Milky Way and the Milky Way itself is moving. So keeping track of all the movement needs great perspective.

Spiritually speaking, Churches tend to see the Kingdom of God from their perspective only, without realizing the magnitude of God’s expansive Church. We are all fulfilling a small part and take responsibility for the regions and people God has entrusted in our care. Every so often God will allow galaxies to collide and merge to form unified movements that establish His kingdom in hearts and minds.

When Galaxies Collide

There is a cool site for further triggers into galactic meditation where I source a lot of these facts about galaxies: http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-are-galaxies/

Using the Hubble Space telescope (HST), astronomers found a cluster of galaxies colliding in 1999, 81 to be exact and 13 of the galaxies are remnants of recent collisions. This finding was interesting because it showed that in some cases, big massive galaxies are formed through collision between smaller ones. Sometimes the very confrontations we experience in life lead to the formation of long lasting relationships, because if we are not pulled out of an old way of thinking we might never change.  But do the stars actually collide and explode?

 

“Although during the collision the stars in the galaxies do not run into each other, their orbits are strongly disturbed by huge tidal forces caused by the gravitational pull.” What one needs to bear in mind is the enormous amount of “space” in galaxies, so the gravity of the stars will affect that of each other in their orbits.

 

“As a result, the 'parent' galaxies lose their shape and smoother galaxies are formed. Clearly defined spiral galaxies, for instance, produce large featureless elliptical galaxies. The whole merging process can take less than a billion years, a relatively short time scale in astronomy.” 

The process of change takes time and therefore patience. The Bible says we should “Let patience have its perfect work (in us) so that (we) can be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:4, New King James Version of the Bible.

A gallery of HST images showing distant galaxies in various stages of collision. The merging galaxies have weird, distorted shapes unlike normal spiral or elliptical galaxies. Some show streams of stars apparently being pulled from one galaxy into another. All of the galaxy pairs shown here are located in a larger grouping of galaxies known as MS1054-03

 

Two galaxies interact because of the tidal pull of gravity that causes the massive objects to attract. Stars within galaxies are so far apart that they also act individually and an intricate sequence of tidal forces affect the future shape of the merged galaxy as it calms down. In the outer reaches of the collision, “long streamers of gas and dust – know as tidal tails – stretch out and sweep back to wrap around the galactic core.

“Gas and dust within colliding galaxies are buffeted and accelerated by the tidal forces, sending shockwaves through the matter, which becomes so heated that it radiates light at a luminosity several thousand billion times brighter than the Sun.” (www.independent.co.uk/news/science/interstellar-carcrashes-when-galaxies-collide815272.html Quote from an article in the Independent UK.)

 

Different types of Galaxies

So there are different types of galaxies and there is a wonderful slide show on NASA’s web site with interesting shapes and names including the Sombrero Galaxy for instance. God is awesome in his creativity and His sense of humour.