Let’s face it. With the popularity of texting and the abbreviations used by people to get their point across, those of us who are less savvy when it comes to social media are sometimes at a loss as to what is being said to us. Most of us know that LOL means “laughing out loud” and it was quite some time before I realized that LMAO stands for “laughing my *** off.” And then there is the ever popular YOLO – “you only live once”. While I know that there are hundreds of abbreviations that are used as a sort of social shorthand, YOLO seems to be the one that I have been hearing more and more recently.
I started thinking about whether this is true or not – you only live once. Of course, the theory behind the statement is that you should take risks and do things that you won’t regret later because you only go around once and as the old Schlitz beer commercial goes, we should “go for the gusto”… But the truth of the matter is that you only live once if you don’t believe in the saving grace of God and if you haven’t accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life. Then, if that is the case, I agree with you… YOLO!
However, Jesus, during His time on earth, made it quite clear that we had to die to ourselves and that we had to be “born again” – accepting the free gift of eternal life offered by God and His Son, Jesus. In that case, YOLO doesn’t apply – in fact, we would be correct to say that YOLT is the reality – you only live twice! That’s because when you accept Christ as the Lord of your life and accept the gift of salvation, your second life – that is, your eternal life, begins at that moment.
What makes this a little difficult to accept is that you don’t have to physically die to have your second life begin. That’s right – the moment you accept Christ your eternal life begins. Now, short of the rapture, when we will be whisked away in the blink of an eye, assuming it happens during our lifetimes, everyone will experience a physical death. But your spiritual life won’t end at that time – in fact, it won’t ever end.
It’s true that we don’t know what heaven will be like, but we are told in the Scriptures that it will be quite incredible. The angels will worship God and so will we. And I’m sure that it will be even greater than we can imagine. No more pain, everything new – the list just goes on and on.
But we have to get there first – and that starts with a profession of faith accepting Christ as Lord and Savior of your life. The apostle John, author of five books in the New Testament, tells us in his Gospel what Jesus said. The Bible says, in John 3:3, “In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’” That born again statement is the one that is your second life – the important one…
My encouragement this evening is that God wants you to live twice – not once. And my prayer is that you will leave your first life behind and focus on your eternal life with God. By the way, while you are at it, you may even reach out to others who haven’t experienced their second life and encourage them to join the rest of us on our journey through eternity. It’s something they won’t want to miss… Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…