By
Ada Brownell
I
imagine you’ve read or heard the true stories about someone taken to the
morgue, and then a hand moves, an eye opens, or a leg lifts, and the person is
alive.
Perhaps you were one of the thousands who
purchased Heaven is For Real, the
story of a young boy who emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable
stories about heaven. The book
about little Colton by Todd Burpo, a Nebraska pastor, has 7,781 reviews and now is a movie.
I attended a writers’ conference where
the keynote speaker was Cecil Muriphey, who wrote 90 Minutes in Heaven with Don Piper, who lived again after declared
dead at the scene of an accident where his car was crushed under the wheels of
a truck .A pastor waiting at the scene 90 minutes later said God told him to
pray for the dead man. He did, and Piper immediately breathed and came to life.
The book is another best seller.
I tell in my book, Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal,
about Lynn
Orr, a man I knew in Denver, who had a heart attack. He said one minute he lay
in a hospital bed, and the next his bare feet stood on a smooth street paved
with gold. In the distance, he saw a beautiful gate and a city. He smelled
gorgeous flowers, and heard singing and rejoicing. He talked with Jesus. Then
he was back in the bed, worrying his body wasn’t covered as medical personnel
zapped his heart and brought him back.
I
don’t remember how long Lynn was said to
be clinically dead, but he testified to the glories of heaven and a few weeks
after I heard him speak, he went to be with Jesus. He said after seeing heaven,
he no longer desired to live on earth.
To
many people, these testimonies are proof of life after death. They are
wonderful to hear. Yet, are they proof?
In
Swallowed by Life, I present evidence
from medical science that we are more a body. I go into the miracles of cell death and
rejuvenation, where our bodies die and are replaced one cell at a time until
after seven years our whole body has died and been renewed except for the
central nervous system, and some evidence shows even dead brain cells sometimes
rejuvenate.
But
the greatest evidence is before our eyes all the time. We begin life as a
fertilized egg and we’re the person we became from the day God’s life burst
into that egg. We grew in the womb and were born at seven pounds or so, and
we’re still the same person.
I
or you could lose weight, a part of our flesh, and we’re still me or you—whoever
we were before.
We
could lose a leg, an arm, an eye, have diseased organs removed. A surgeon could even cut out
our heart, kidneys, lungs and transplant someone else’s and we would still be
who we are.
All
the things I mention are evidence we are more than a body. A neurologist told
me he believes the brain is the residence of the soul, so perhaps that’s why
the neurological system doesn’t die and regenerate constantly as other parts
do.
Yet,
is that proof we aren’t as connected to our bodies as we thought? I think it’s
great evidence, but still it’s not proof.
Why?
Because resurrection and salvation are matters of faith. John tells us, “For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the
life. He who believes in me will
live, even though he dies; and whoever believes
in me will never die” (John 10:25-26).
St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “If you confess
with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans
10:9).
Jesus
said, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).
The Romans and the Jews never found his body, at least 500 people saw him after the Resurrection, the soldiers testified he was dead, the disciples preached and wrote that they were eyewitnesses, some of them convinced when at first they didn't believe.
On the day of Pentecost, 40 days after the Resurrection, Peter preached in the public square that He'd risen from the dead and 3,000 people believed.
No one would die for something they knew was a lie, and according the scripture and tradition, all the disciples gave their lives for the faith except Judas, who committed suicide after his betrayal of the Son of God, and John, who died imprisoned on Patmos.
Do
you believe? That’s what you need to do, because no one will prove it, and you have
to believe in Jesus to live forever. It won't make any difference what your relatives print in your obituary about you being in heaven.
It’s
your decision.
Don't wait for proof about the eternal. Jesus told about a rich man, recorded in Luke 16, who had no compassion for other people who died and went to hell.
The man was in such torment he requested that Abraham send a righteous beggar, Lazarus, who died at the rich man's gate, to his five brothers to tell them to how to avoid hell.
"They have Moses and the prphets, let them hear them," Abraham said.
"But if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent," the man in hell said.
Abraham answered, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead."
The truth of those words has been confirmed by millions in every generation who refuse to repent, although the Son of God rose from the dead and is alive forevermore.
Don't wait for proof about the eternal. Jesus told about a rich man, recorded in Luke 16, who had no compassion for other people who died and went to hell.
The man was in such torment he requested that Abraham send a righteous beggar, Lazarus, who died at the rich man's gate, to his five brothers to tell them to how to avoid hell.
"They have Moses and the prphets, let them hear them," Abraham said.
"But if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent," the man in hell said.
Abraham answered, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead."
The truth of those words has been confirmed by millions in every generation who refuse to repent, although the Son of God rose from the dead and is alive forevermore.
©Ada Brownell April 14, 2014
BOOK SUMMARY AND AUTHOR BIO
SWALLOWED BY LIFE: Mysteries of Death,
Resurrection and the Eternal
By Ada
Brownell
Do you
know evidence shows we’re more than a physical body? The author, a prolific
religion writer and retired medical journalist, talks about the evidence; the
wonder of life with all its electrical systems; the awesome truth about cell
death and regeneration; mysteries surrounding the change from mortal to
immortal; where we go when our body dies; resurrection; and a glimpse at what
we will do in heaven. Questions and answers make this non-fiction inspirational
book a great text for group study. It’s written for support groups, religion
classes, people with chronic or terminal illness, individuals who fear death or
are curious about it, the grieving, and those who give them counsel.
An excerpt from Swallowed by Life
was featured in the June 2, 2013,
“Reading for Spiritual Health” edition of The Pentecostal Evangel.
Where
you can find Swallowed by Life:
Barnes
and Noble: http://bit.ly/JnbKVL
Booksamillion.com
http://ow.ly/cJmx8
And you
can see reviews on GoodReads http://ow.ly/cJmMe
Christian Publishers
Outlet also has the paperback
Ada Brownell bio
Ada Brownell has been writing for
Christian publications since age 15 and spent much of her life as a daily newspaper
reporter. She has a B.S. degree in Mass Communications and worked most of her
career at The Pueblo Chieftain in
Colo., where she spent the last seven years as a medical writer. After moving
to Springfield, MO in her retirement, she continues to free lance for Christian
publications and write non-fiction and fiction books. She is critique group
leader of Ozarks Chapter of American Christian Writers.
She is author of Imagine the Future You, Dec. 6, 2013; Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the
Catapult, released Jan. 15, 2013; Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death,
Resurrection and the Eternal, released Dec. 6, 2011; and Confessions of a Pentecostal, published
by the Assemblies of God’s Gospel Publishing House in 1978, out- of-print but
released in 2012 for Kindle. All
the books are available in paper or for Kindle.
Twitter:
@adellerella
Blog: http://inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com
Stick to Your Soul Encouragement
Amazon
Ada Brownell author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06
·
No comments:
Post a Comment