Death cannot interrupt eternal life

Death cannot interrupt eternal life.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

— Jesus

We often talk about eternal life as something that begins after we die, but that is not how Jesus spoke of it. Jesus said eternal life is not something you enter after you die, eternal life is something you can begin living in now — and then death cannot interrupt it. Eternity is now in session and you and I are invited to live there starting now. 

Author Dallas Willard was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and lived less than a year after the diagnosis. During that time he said to a friend, “I wonder if it will take me a while to realize I have died after I die.” You see, for him, he was already living in eternity (in the presence of Jesus) on a regular basis. He experienced the reality that eternity is now in session. It was his practice to live in that reality for as many moments of each day as possible. When he found that his thoughts moved to worry, or fear, or his own concerns apart from God he would try to notice that and gently work to remove anything that got in the way of living in the reality of the presence of God.  He was already living in eternal life and so death could not interrupt that. That is why it was just sort of natural for him to wonder…when I die…will it take me a little while to realize that I have? 

What a thought! Eternity is now in session and you and I can live there.