Distributed Living

but the gift of God is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord Romans 6:23

Life Everlasting – When did we make the mistake of thinking that we could accumulate God’s distributed gift? Most Christians simply do not understand the radical shift that occurs when we finally start living God’s paradigm. We are so used to a world that works on the accumulation model that we simply take God’s free gift of grace and re-package it as something we accumulate. We think of it as a beautifully wrapped present that we can hold on to. So, we get eternal life. We put it in our spiritual bank account and then we live as though we have now accumulated this possession. That kind of thinking undermines God’s entire economy. Life everlasting is not something I can package up and put in a safe place of my own. It is not a possession. It is a relationship and it only has value in use. In other words, life everlasting is something I spend every day. As soon as I try to save it, it disappears. Life everlasting is nothing more than me spending all of my time with God, giving away the moments in relationship with Him. It’s not a possession. It’s an interaction.

Paul knew this secret very well. He uses the Greek zoe aionios (life everlasting) in order to point us to this critical fact: aionios is about duration. It’s about going on and on and on. You can’t box that up! You have to live it out. Life with God is life spent forever and ever. If God is the giver of life, then the life that I have depends entirely on Him for every moment it exists. It can’t be stored up for later any more than I can store up time today to use tomorrow. God’s distribution model reaches into the very core of existence. Time can only be distributed. It cannot be accumulated. There is no way to save this second and use it later. If I don’t use it when it is available, it is gone forever. That’s what God gives: the gift of everlasting time with Him, distributed over eternity, spent in every moment that I have for the rest of forever. That is eternal life.

Now you know why eternal life begins as soon as I move into alignment with God’s point of view. It begins when Jesus becomes my Lord and Savior. But it isn’t something I wrap up and put on the shelf for use when I die or when I get to the pearly gates. It is life distributed, every moment from now on as I am sharing time with God. Aionios says it all. Duration, not package. Distribution, not accumulation.

You can spend eternal life in every moment you have, now and forever. But you can’t save it for a rainy day.