#DailyDevotion Escape The Zombie Apocalypse
Friday Easter 7
1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
Can I get a testimony? God has a testimony. It is that he has given us eternal life. We were once dead, dead in trespasses and sins. We did not have the life of God in us. It’s a zombie apocalypse out there. The world filled with the living dead. But God loved us and sent his son with the cure, the life of his Son. Through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments zombieism can be put in remission in this life and totally cured in the world to come.
Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us this eternal life when we hear the love God has for us through his sacrifice on the cross. When we hear Jesus paid our debt, died our death, atoned for our sins, expiated and propitiated the wrath of God, the Holy Spirit uses that to create faith in us and faith receives eternal life in us.
As we are baptized into the name of Jesus we are joined to him in the spirit. We become one with Jesus, his suffering, death, burial and resurrection. He joins himself to us and makes our hearts his throne. He begins renewing us daily inwardly. His life, immortality, changes us and conforms us to his image, so that on the last day, this eternal life overtakes our mortality and we are raised immortal, imperishable and glorious like Jesus.
His life changes how we think, what we think, our affections, desires, wants, plans, anything and everything about us will change, some things greater than others. His life redirects our lives. We may be doing many of the same things but with a total and complete frame-shift of reality.
John writes this to us so we may know we have eternal life. It’s important to hear the good news on a regular basis. It keeps our zombieism in remission. It’s good to gather with former zombies to encourage and strengthen them in the good news of the gift of eternal life we have in Jesus. It helps to keep us from acting on our old zombie ways which are still with us in the flesh. Remembering we have been given the gift of eternal life keeps us oriented to the form and ways of the Son whose life in us. But as John reminded us in chapter one, if we resort to our life of death again, we have one who speak for us, who is our advocate before the Father. If we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and will forgive these and restore us back to life.
Heavenly Father, we give you thanks that you have given us eternal life by giving us your Son Jesus Christ. May this testimony ever reside in us so that on the day of his revelation we may be clothed with immortality even as we have been restored inwardly today. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.