IMMORTAL (I’m Mortal)

(from 2013)

Introduction

“Do No Try This at Home” is a phrase generally seen as a disclaimer on certain television shows that feature dangerous stunts or other things in which professionals have been training to do for many years. Teenagers and young adults will attempt to imitate these very same stunts themselves. Why? Because it’s the thrill of the stunt and an opportunity to gain approval of their peers. To them failure is not an option as well as death. It’s a certain level of immortality that young people feel because, to them, their whole life is ahead of them and death only happens to old people. But as a preacher once said, “The Old must die and the young do die.”

Definitions of Immortal

The dictionary definition for immortal is ‘Exempt from Death’ or ‘Imperishable’.  In other words, you can never die or you live forever. But this is not true and we all, eventually, will die.

In addition, the dictionary also defines immortal on the basis of a noun in that even after a person dies, his work continues on whether it is books, music, or an architectural structure; there is certain immortality in that. But they too will disappear in the end as the apostle Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3: 10, “but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.”

The Greek word for immortal is ATHANASIA which, literally, means “deathlessness” (Vine’s). It goes on to say, in regards to the New Testament, that it is the quality of life enjoyed, as is clear from 2 Cor. 5:4, for the believer what is mortal is to be “swallowed up of life”.

Death is not a respecter of persons.

There is no minimum age requirement before someone departs from this world.  Anywhere from stillborn babies and children in their infancy are just as much a victim of death as are those in their 80s and beyond. Nor is Death a bigot in regards to color, race, creed, social status, or importance in life. Everyone who is conceived will die!

The important part, to those that are born, is the life in between and what we do with it. Not to make a mark in history to say, ‘I was here’, but what you did to serve God and to serve others. Thousands who have lived before us have obediently served God in one capacity or another and yet no one knows their name or what they did isn’t recorded anywhere. What’s important though is that God knows who they are and what they have accomplished in service to Him and the Kingdom (Jn. 10: 14).

In His Service

Even Jesus, the Son of God, when he came to earth was a servant and not one to be served. In Lk. 22: 27 Jesus said, “For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.”

  The apostle Paul confirms this in Phil. 2: 7 in which he writes, “but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.”

Conclusion

There is only one way a person can achieve immortality and that is through death.  The soul continues on in the afterlife whether to spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell. The apostle Paul explains this immortality in 1 Cor. 15:53-54, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."

            Live your life for God; not for man and not for the pleasure of stunts. The next time you get a sense of being immortal, separate the first two letters into a contraction so it reads ‘I’m mortal’ and this will help you stay grounded in truth.