John 8:51
The people Jesus was speaking to here took Him to mean physical death; He meant spiritual death.
Jesus' words are like deep wells. The other day, I noticed another possible dimension to this verse. What if Jesus is not only talking about the afterlife, but also about now? If we obey Him as Lord moment-by-moment, we need never see the spiritual destruction that we would invite by our disobedience.
When we fall, when we begin to tell God by our actions that our agenda is more important than His, the Holy Spirit will make it clear to us sooner or later that we are hurting Jesus. When we turn from this sin and ask forgiveness, He forgives us -- not because of the intensity of our remorse, but because Jesus Himself paid the ultimate price for this sin.
And I am saying this "out loud" to myself not because I've learned the secret of turning swiftly from my own sin, but because I haven't. Yet I want to. Because when I do something that hurts Jesus, I am hurting the One I love more than anyone or anything in the world.
Why, why is the link between my own willfulness and His pain not more palpable to me? I can blame the free-spirited age I was raised in... I can blame any number of things. But the truth is there. I, by nature, disassociate myself from His pain. It is only God's work within me that can reveal the despicable link between my willfulness and Christ's death. And it is only by that same atoning death that He will happily cleanse and transform me.