God’s purpose for me, His disciple, is that I should never “see” death Enoch is the great example of a life lived so dependently on God that not even death could touch him. “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death” (Hebrews 11:5). There was no “dying grace” with Enoch, for dying grace is God’s final act of charity toward a believer who needs a little extra help in his transition from earth to heaven. I must live so that no “dying grace” will ever be necessary.
Victory over death does not occur when death lays its hand upon me. It occurs in the continuous stream of life, where death continually shadows me and seeks to frighten me, even if it cannot claim me. I must live as Enoch did, by faith, which continually holds down death. By the time I reach my actual transition, death should be a slain giant dangling at my side. My immortality must be an immediate and continual thing.
I must not die and go to heaven, but live and go to heaven; in fact, I must not go to heaven at all, but bring heaven down to my level and my sphere, so that the transition will simply be die continuation of an already heavenly walk. I must get beyond the point where faith “saves my soul.” Thank God, it does that, but it does infinitely more, it creates a way of life in which heaven has already come and is not just a distant hope. Some Christians say. “Oh, if I were only in heaven!” I can be In heaven, here and now, by faith. By living according to God’s rules, by letting God visit me personally, and by thinking heaven’s thoughts, I can be enwrapped by heaven now, then, when the transition comes, it will be just the further opening of everlasting glory.
“‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55–57).
Daily with the King 