Days Lane Baptist Church - Blackfen - Sidcup

Plan Right – Sickness and Eternity

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I planned to start 2025 in the usual way. Take time off for my birthday, winter walks with the family, catchup on sleep, and planning for how I am going to be more efficient for the new year. Everything seemed to be going well, and then I got sick. I didn’t plan to be sick for ten days. I couldn’t work through it either. It was debilitating. One day I was well, and the next day everything changed. My targets and goals were reduced to: take medicine, stay hydrated and don’t burn into a crisp at night. It was a humbling reminder that despite every effort, I will always be limited by my mortal, failing, fleshly body, that grows older and weaker each day.

This isn’t a negative perspective, but rather, an accurate one. Illness doesn’t come because of a lack of faith, or a lack of anointing, or a lack of favour with God. It’s not a generational curse, nor an attack of the devil. Illness comes because our bodies are fallen and corrupted with sin. We die because of the sin in our flesh that we all inherited from Adam, our federal head, when he disobeyed God in the Garden.

Sickness reminds us of how fragile we are in our mortality. Sickness reminds us that London is not our final stop and that eternity awaits. It is not beyond the realms of God’s power to heal us physically through prayer or by the use of medicine. But we miss the point unless we recognise that the healing we see in scripture were signs that Jesus , who can heal you physically, is God who created you. Those who have been healed got sick again. Those who were raised from the dead died again. The miracle of all miracles; the great display of God’s power is in granting us the gift of eternal life!

Eternal life is the ultimate gift, aim and desire of a man who knows he is dying. There is nothing more precious to him, and nothing more that he would want! What good news it is to his ears when he hears that it is free and available; that Jesus died in his place and rose again on the third day, defeating death! That a new body awaits in heaven, where there is no more pain or sorrow. All accessible by grace though faith.

If we are to plan well, we must first plan for what is most important: eternity.

150,000 people die each day across the world. All of them would have made plans for tomorrow. One day we will all be in those daily statistics. Make sure you plan where you are going. Believe in Christ who has conquered death, and stand firm on Jesus’ words:

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (John 11:25–26)

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