To Encourage You

Hebrews 9:16-17 “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.”

Have you ever inherited anything?  If you have, you understand full well that an inheritance comes as a mixed blessing.  It’s a very good thing, for you receive something of value from someone you have undoubtedly loved very much, such as a parent.  The inheritance has value in and of itself, but also because it once belonged to someone you had a relationship with.  Because of this, every time you think about whatever it is that you inherited, your thoughts go to the one from whom you received it.  Those are some of the benefits and blessings of such a thing. However, on the downside, to inherit something from someone means that that someone whom you loved is no longer with you for the death of a person is the only means whereby the heir receives that inheritance.  It’s likely that any gain that comes from the inheritance never comes close to the loss that had to occur first for the heir to receive it.  And thus, the benefits are tempered – the good is mixed with the bad.  Furthermore, any inheritance we might receive from anyone is always time limited, for we will only possess those things until we also die, and thereby pass everything we possess to those who remain. 

But there is an inheritance that’s not like that. It’s reserved for those who know the Lord.  Throughout the Scriptures we are told that believers have a wonderful inheritance that is reserved for them.  It is multifaceted.  It is eternal. And it is of inestimable value, for it includes the very possessions of God.  As such, it is comprised of such things as the entire earth (Matthew 5:5), for “the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). It includes all that God is, such as eternal life (Matthew 19:29), for only He possesses such a life, and only He can give it to whom He will (John 5:21). Believers will also inherit a great and eternal kingdom. It’s the very kingdom of God (Matthew 25:34).  In fact, the believer is told that he or she will inherit “all things” (Revelation 21:7), i.e., all things of eternal and infinite value, for it is those things that are the possessions of God.  And while it includes the things mentioned, it also includes such awesome and wondrous blessings as the very joy of the Lord, the peace of Christ himself, everlasting hope, the very righteousness of Christ, forgiveness for all our sins, and the boundless love of God that will be expressed to us in a myriad of ways throughout all eternity. 

But how do these things come to us? In what sense are they called an inheritance? Because, like any other inheritance, they only come to us as the result of someone’s death. And who is that someone? It’s the One from Whom all things are promised to us, i.e., the Son of God.  But the wonder of it all is that unlike earthly inheritances that involve the death of someone we love, this One Who has died so that we might become joint heirs with Him rose again to die no more. As a result, unlike an earthly inheritance, whereby we are constantly reminded by our very possession of it of the loss of one we dearly loved, our heavenly inheritance involves no such loss, for the resurrected Christ has told us “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).  He has also told us that though He would return to heaven after His ascension, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). 

The inheritance of Christ: there are no downsides, but the only way we can have it is to die with Him, i.e., to die to our life of sin by receiving His death as the sacrifice for the death sentence each of us deserve (Romans 6:5-11). And another thing: this inheritance, wonderfully, is not timebound like any earthly inheritance, for as part of this inheritance, we also receive a new life that will be lived with Him forever. 

Praise be to the Living One, that One that died that we might receive an eternal inheritance, but rose again, and remains alive forevermore (Revelation 1:18).