Men live to die – Christians die to live. Death begins the moment a person is born. Life begins the moment a Christian learns to die.

Have you ever realized that no one ever died in the presence of Jesus? No one ever will. Herein, of course, lies a most remarkable story. First of all we all know that everyone has a date with death. Death and taxes we are told never change.

However, God never ever intended for man to die – death is as foreign to man as an elephant with wings. But die he did! In a tragic incredible moment man, the highest art of God’s creative genius, chose of his own volition to believe Satan’s lie as God’s truth and God’s truth as Satan’s lie.

In a transcending moment a conversion took place in that beautiful garden that God had made for man. In that moment man passed from life to death. Life which was to be common became uncommon and death which was to be most uncommon became common.

Death has reigned supreme as Paul tells us – and man’s fear of death has forced him into all kinds of idolatry and false worship. Man has done his best to outsmart death all to no avail.

But where man failed God succeeded. God who is life became life incarnate in the Person of Jesus, and every person man, woman, boy, girl who receives Him receives life. "I have come," Jesus said, "that you might have life."

But the life that we live must be lost that we might possess the life that He lives. We become one with Him in death so we can become one with Him in life.