“For he will never be shaken; the righteous will be remembered forever.” Psalm 112:6
At our core, we are designed with an inescapable desire to be on unshakable ground. We all manifest this desire in different ways. Teens can be reckless, chasing dangerous thrills, with a deep-seated belief that they are invincible, unshakable. When we have lived a little longer, God mercifully brings us face-to-face with the fragility of human life. Usually, by the time we are parents, we are willing to exert much effort and experience difficulty, all to preserve the precious lives entrusted to our care. We hope this gift of life will never be shaken. Even the midlife crisis is really the drive to find unshakable ground amid the storms of life and the aging of people and things. Yet, every attempt proves to be a disappointing mirage.
Ultimately, this desire is a longing for eternal life. In a quest for permanence, people clamor to write books, do remarkable things, start businesses, and affect other people. More and more now, young people aim to be famous, revealing a desire to be remembered. But this pursuit is uncertain, empty, and deceitful. All the while, Jesus, who once died, is alive forevermore and holds the keys to death and hell, which means He alone can free us from the clutches of both (Revelation 1:18). All the while, He is still saying, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). We should deeply consider the Lord’s question; our eternal destiny hinges on how we answer.
The things we most avoid – namely, death and loss – are like a signal fire alerting us to our greatest problem. Sadly, so many are seeing the fire but have not understood the problem. In the book of Genesis, we are told that death, decay, sickness, depression, and all the wrongs and hurts of human life were not a part of God’s plan. He gave us all the trees in the garden for food, more than anyone could ask, but He warned us about one fruit that would bring about our death, physically in the grave and spiritually in hell. But we each chose to eat from it anyway, rejecting God’s loving authority. Human sin, from Adam down to us, has brought the consequences we are now trying so hard to avoid.
But God loves us and did not leave us without help or hope. He actually stepped down from His eternal throne in the highest place and entered into the very depths of these consequences we seek to avoid. He was born as a baby in order to die as a man, carrying the full weight of all the consequences of our wrongdoing. He experienced hell for you and me. We have lived for ourselves, dishonoring Him, but He has given up everything just to save us. Jesus knew no sin, and yet He became sin on our behalf, “so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
If anyone believes and receives Him, their “righteousness endures forever” (Psalm 112:3, 9). No matter how good we feel we are, our goodness cannot erase our sin. But through the cross, Jesus offers His own perfect righteousness to all who will believe. He freely forgives all our sins if we repent, letting go of our love for sin and allowing our hearts to love Him, who first loved us. He reroutes our GPS from eternal death to eternal life. It is a very small and fleeting thing to be remembered by people. But as soon as I give my heart and life to Jesus, I am remembered forever by God. How can He forget me when He said, “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:16)? And if our life is hidden there, in His scars, then because He lives forever, we too will live forever with Him, all the days of this life and into eternity.
Alex Mack
Teaching Pastor
The Rock Church