We'll Live Forever

Growing up in Northern Ohio in the ‘80s and '90s, you had two choices: be a football fan or be wrong. It was so ingrained into the culture. Friday nights were for one thing only, and that was High School football. One year, our team made it to the state playoffs and were playing a team that was an hour or two away from our hometown. That week, three of my friends and I decided to load up one of their cars and head out to the game. It was a fun night that unfortunately ended with our team losing. That’s not why I’m telling you this story, though. It was the trip home that made this story interesting. 

On the way home, we were talking, listening to music, and cracking jokes when one of the guys looked out the front window and said, “Hey guys, the sky looks bright green!” I looked out of my window and told them it was red out my window. One of the other guys looked out his window and said it looked like the sky was opening up. We pulled the car over, looked up, and sure enough, it looked like the sky was cracking open. Immediately, fear began to rear its ugly head, and the three of us went into a panic. We were all church kids, and we knew that, one day, Jesus was returning. We thought it was happening right then!

What happened next is very real and one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. All of us thought we were going to hell. None of us in that car were perfect, and we all had made dumb choices throughout high school. On the side of that road, we all dropped to our knees and asked God to forgive us. If you were driving down US Route 60 in the fall of 1991 and saw a bunch of kids looking like they were doing some sort of cultish chant on the side of the road, fear not. It was my buddies and me freaking out about our eternity. The wildest thing happened next…nothing. The sky still looked like it was cracking open, but nothing was happening. The rest of the ride home was dead silence from each of us. No one spoke a word. When we dropped off the first of our friends, we all agreed to never tell anyone about this. I’m currently breaking that promise. However, I will never share their names publicly. 

The next morning, my mom was reading the paper when she said, “Did you guys know the aurora borealis was visible last night?” My sister asked what that was, and my mother informed her that they were the northern lights, showing her a picture of them from the paper. My sister made the statement, “It looks like the sky is cracking open.” Yes, Kara, it definitely looked like the sky was cracking open. 

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:2

Eternity. Want to make your head spin and get a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach? Try to think about eternity. Even better, try to comprehend eternity. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have tried to understand how eternity works, but find myself just incapable of really grasping the concept. It never ends. Nothing on this earth never ends. Every experience we have has a beginning and an end. Even time, as we understand it, has a clear starting point and ending point. A year has 365 days, and it’s over. A day has 24 hours, and it’s over. An hour has 60 minutes, and it’s over. Those minutes have 60 seconds, and they’re over. 

Expiration dates are the norm for us. Food expires. You have to renew your driver’s license every few years. Even gasoline can become useless over time. We struggle with eternity because this earth demonstrates the temporary in everything. Every one of us has lost a loved one. Every one of us has had a pet die. We easily understand the concept of expiration, but eternity is another story altogether. 

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Genesis 1:26

From creation, we were made to be in the likeness of God. Some would say this is in appearance. I would say it’s more about the person of God. God is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. Obviously, we are created, so we aren’t truly eternal in the same way that God is, but He created us to live forever. To really understand God’s existence, we can look to a conversation that Jesus had with some Jews in the temple. He told them that Abraham himself was not before Him. The Jews were infuriated by this idea. 

So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
John 8:57–58

“I am.” This statement meant something to the Jews. These two words were the same two words that God said to Moses when he asked who he should say sent him to the Egyptians.

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
Exodus 3:13–14

Notice, God didn’t say, “I was” or “I will be.” He says, “I Am.” As long as there has been time, God has been there. Time and space are nothing to Him. He created them. God works however He wants to work. He doesn’t have to deal with expiration or due dates. Even the concept of time itself is fluid to him. 

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
Psalm 90:4

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2 Peter 3:8

So what does this mean for us? God created us in His image. We are the only beings in all of creation that get that designation. He created us to be with Him forever, and He gives us the choice of whether or not we want to be with Him. 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
John 3:16

God never forces Himself on us. Instead, He allows us the choice to love and believe in Him. It is the most important choice we’ll ever make. When we choose Christ, we choose eternity. When we choose Christ, we’ll live forever.