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Aging gracefully through God's blessings.
It has been said before, and I'll say it again,"God is amazing." In this episode of,"God is amazing", we'll explore how God can save you from the ravages of old age. We can't guarantee you'll be saved from old age, no matter how pious you are. This is because God's ways are above our ways. Anyone who knows anything about God is that if you have God's favor, all good things are possible for you. One good thing is aging gracefully. We know a lot of people want to age gracefully for there are so many scam artists selling products that give you the appearance of looking younger. If you want to truly age gracefully, you want to age under the loving care of the grace of God. It is always fun telling people of the hope they have in God. Telling Good News is fun to do because I love other people. I want other people to be happy. And one way to make people happy is to tell them the truth that is so good that many people can not even believe it! So with great excitement, let us explore how God can help you age well.
Let us first read in the Bible where God directly helps people age well. Deuteronomy 34:7 GNT "Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; he was as strong as ever, and his eyesight was still good." and Joshua 14:10(Caleb said),"But now, look. It has been forty-five years since the Lord said that to Moses. That was when Israel was going through the desert, and the Lord, as he promised, has kept me alive ever since. Look at me! I am eighty-five years old 11 and am just as strong today as I was when Moses sent me out. I am still strong enough for war or for anything else. " and Genesis 25:7 "Abraham died at the ripe old age of 175." You do know Abraham lived that long in the modern era when God no longer let people live over 200 years old. If Abraham lived to 175 way before modern medicine, truly God can work wonders. He had children in his hundreds even, so it wasn't like he was wasting away for a long time. God can not only grant you more years to your life, he can bring more life to your years.
The first thing that may come to mind to some is,"Wait a minute, I've treated my body badly over the years and I have a health condition. Certainly God won't heal me up from all the years I was sinful to my own body." While I can't guarantee everyone will be as strong as an ox and raise up on eagles wings, there is no better way to try than honoring God. Remember, you might have treated your body sinfully before you learned of Jesus, but after accepting Jesus and repenting of sins, you're a new creation, and God can perform all sorts of works in you.
Even someone who is healthy now and tries to do good in all that he does can't be guaranteed a long life and health. A guarantee isn't something to expect, but God's favor will shine upon you. God's favor might not even happen in this life, it might be all happening in the next life. It is good to seek God's favor and get praise from Him because that is the very goal of life. Our purpose in life is to worship God our provider, not to get stuff, but to show respect to the one who loves us more than we can imagine. It just so happens that one of the benefits to serving God, is that he can bless us in all sorts of ways. And if it is on your heart to have a blessing of aging well, you can pray for it. It is fine to pray for things that benefit yourself. We sometimes get all caught up in praying for others that sometimes we don't tell God our own personal desires for our self. Prayer tells God what we want, but he has the final say. And if God is restricting you from receiving something that is good for you like a healthy life through aging, he has good reason. God's ways are above our ways. We can't criticize God for anything he does for we don't have complete information on why he does things the way he does. God does love us though, and wants what is best for us.
One thing that really causes more problems for aging people than it should is money. It is important to be financially secure as you age because not everyone can always perform the rigorous labor best left to youth. To be secure in the LORD does not guarantee financial wealth, but it is one way God can provide for you. Even if God does not provide financial wealth, he may provide other unique ways for you to get by. God is a strong ally as you age.
Exodus 7:7 GNT At the time when they spoke to the king, Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron was eighty-three. We see here that Moses and Aaron's mission didn't even start until they were in their 80s. Aging does not mean you have less of an impact to the world. As you age, you have more and more intelligence from all the wisdom you gather during your lifetime. If God wants to use you, it doesn't matter how old you are because there are all kinds of things you can be doing. If you have extra income(the later years of one's life is the time most likely to have wealth if it ever happens), you can help the poor around the world who are starving to death. You can get out and tell people about Jesus and how great God is. Even if you're ill and infirmed, you can tell people that visit you of your great hope you have in Jesus! In a world which thinks aging makes people irrelevant to life because they can't party as hard as the youngins', God just might use that which people think is irrelevant to teach them the ways of the true meaning to life.
I'm just briefly going to get into the afterlife here. We all know God lets us get to the New Earth or the New Heavens. We all know our bodies are going to be more awesome than anything we've seen on Earth. Regardless of life or death, in union with God, we have hope for tomorrow. So don't fear getting old for any reason. If God wants to preserve you in life, you can be strong in old age. If God doesn't have you strong in old age, he has a reason for it. And we should be happy to be in God's will, for God's will brings eternal peace. Don't worry about getting old, life doesn't end at a certain age. In fact we should be living for God no matter how old we get.
-Jim Sager III