Death to Life

Because we belong to Christ, we have been brought into eternal life - we have the promise of heaven in the life to come and the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit for this life. 1st Corinthians chapter 2 provides encouragement to walk in that power:
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

There is an afterlife, and the Bible provides us with certain truths that show us what the life to come is like - we will be with Jesus forever, and the Bible tells us to be absent from our earthly bodies is to be present with the Lord. While we are in these bodies, walking through this earth, we can also be assured of the supernatural power of God, enabling us to experience His presence each and every day; we can abide in Him and draw near to Him with expectation of what He will do. 

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The Bible provides us the encouragement we need in order to walk in the supernatural presence of God and the assurance of our eternal home, if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord. 2nd Corinthians 5 deals with these themes in the following passage:
6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.
8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
9 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.

We can give God the praise that He is the One who is in control even over life and death.  And, perhaps you have heard stories of people who have had what are termed, "near-death experiences" or even people who have legally died, yet lived again.  Lee Strobel and John Burke are two authors who have explored these types of experiences.  Their findings, and our knowledge of Scripture, can help us to recognize the existence of the afterlife and even the validity of stories of people who have faced death and perhaps even crossed over.  Don Piper is one example of someone who actually died, experienced heaven, and came back to life.

So is Sammy Berko, a young man from Texas.  CBN.com related his story in a recent article, which reported that Sammy went into cardiac arrest in a gym on a rock climbing wall and "was...pronounced dead after a bystander, medical professionals, and doctors worked on him for hours in a desperate attempt to restart his stopped heart...Doctors gave up hope — and then something incredible happened. The 16-year-old came back to life, KRIV-TV reported."

The story goes on to quote Sammy's mother, Jennifer, who said, “I started talking to [Sammy], just telling him how much I love him and sorry that we didn’t know how to save him,” adding, “Suddenly, as I started praying, my husband said, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s moving.'”

CBN stated:

Jennifer and her husband began shouting, and doctors came in and discovered a true miracle had unfolded and Sammy was back, according to KRIV-TV.

The emotional mom, reflecting on all that unfolded, said the medical professionals at the hospital hadn’t seen anything like Sammy’s recovery before.

“Never had they ever pronounced somebody and suddenly they came back five minutes later,” she said. “That feeling of seeing his heartbeat, there are no words for that. There are no words.”

Dr. Stacey Hall, who has been working with Sammy, stated to the television station: "We do see kids all the time here who have had CPR, but with very prolonged CPR, we typically see very severe global anoxic brain injury, so to me, he is a literal miracle..." The story continues:

Her team at TIRR Memorial Hermann is helping Sammy overcome the ischemic spine injury he suffered during cardiac arrest.

"He did have an upper thoracic spinal cord injury, so he is working on strengthening his core, strengthening his legs. He's working on everyday things like transferring, putting clothes on, he is working on walking, and he truly has made remarkable progress," states Dr. Hall.

There's that word again: "miracle."  What a testimony - this story got extensive coverage on KRIV, Fox26 in Houston.  And, it hopefully points people to see that a supernatural event has occurred.

I would also hope that this incident can help people consider where they go when they leave this earth. There is an afterlife, and we all can decide where we want to spend it - Jesus was very plain when He told His disciples He went to prepare a place for us. 

The Bible addresses both the supernatural that is commonly expressed on earth and the eternal that is expressed after we leave this earth.