What determines life? Throughout the countries on this planet, this is an ever-increasing debate on what is life. Whether it’s the quality of life or when that life begins officially, we hear about these a lot.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian gained a lot of attention as the “death doctor” after his arrest in 1999 for voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide. It was believed that he assisted over 130 people end their life. One major reason for doing it was both the patients, and the doctors’, perception that their quality of life wasn’t good, therefore, they didn’t need to go on living.
Interestingly, Kevorkian’s mother, Satenig, was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 during the World War I. In an effort to rid the world of the weak and the Christians, the Ottoman government, modern day Turkey, made up primarily of Muslims, drove out the people that they deemed unworthy to live. From Constantinople towards the Syrian Desert, their trail of cruelty gained attention from those sympathizers of the infirm and Christians, but not before 800,000 plus people died.
Dr. Kevorkian ended up following in the same footsteps as those who nearly annihilated his own mother and her people. The Nazi’s also modeled their efforts after the Ottoman’s philosophy to some degree. In each of these cases deception was a key ingredient in letting people to give up their homes, their citizenship, or their lives to someone set out to destroy them.
Peter reminded his followers that there was a similar foe that is essentially doing the same thing in 1 Peter 5:8-11, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” However, he gives hope to those enduring his efforts to “steal, kill, and destroy” by saying, “But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
But how do you resist someone, or something that is so deeply deceptive as Satan or people like Hitler or Kevorkian? Perhaps it’s in the spiritual understanding of what is the real meaning and value of life.
That understanding helps us determine the real gift of life that God offers but it only comes through what Jesus made possible on the cross. John begins his gospel similar to how Moses began the book of Genesis, “In the beginning…” but John says in “In the beginning was the Word…” John 1:4-5, “In Him (the Word) was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
And he continues in his epistle in 1 John 5:19-20, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” The real value of life is found in Christ, not in what a person has the ability to physically do, not in the intelligence a person demonstrates, not in any one ethnic group.
As Jesus said in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
So as Paul, John, and Jesus remind us, that an understanding of what true life is results in a conviction to live according to the magnificent life that Jesus came and died to bring us. So how does a person know that they are living according to the Spirit of God? According to God’s evaluation of a quality life?
Just like a peach tree produces peaches and an apple tree produces apples; a Spirit filled person, which is the result of God’s gift towards eternal life, will bear fruit that shows they understand the real meaning of life.
Paul highlights the fruit that should be seen in someone who not only has the Spirit, but understands God’s desire for us to have real life. He says in Galatians 5:22-24, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
When we make these qualities the criteria to evaluate real life, it will be impossible to carry out things like genocide on whatever level that may come on. Dr. Kevorkian failed to understand what true life is because he still lived in the darkness, a darkness that many people still live in. My challenge to each of us is to better understand what life is through God’s lens. Or as Proximo said in the movie The Gladiator, “Everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives.”
Wouldn’t you like to have real, true, lasting life that is only found in Jesus Christ?
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