“There’s a caterpillar crawling up your neck, it probably fell from the tree above us!” My friend shivers, grabs his neck, the caterpillar falls to the ground, and he puts his foot on it, and kills it.
“He’s dead …” I say disappointed, and my friend hears the regret my voice.
“Yes, there are beautiful and not so beautiful caterpillars; and the birds like to eat both”, he says.
“Yes,” I say, “But that is not the destination of a caterpillar. Well that he dies, that is, just like for humans, also the destination of all caterpillars. But normally from that caterpillar a butterfly will emerge later! “
And that is also God’s purpose for man;
Not that death would be the end; and certainly not eternal death.
The butterfly is a wonderful example of new life after the resurrection from the dead.
You should take a good look at such a beautiful butterfly.
That really is a miracle; and there are over 120,000 species of butterflies!
Each one in a new, more beautiful body, with more possibilities than before, resurrected from the dead.
You should take a good look at such a beautiful butterfly.
When you look carefully and think about it, you will understand, you will recognize that butterflies, that such a thing can have arisen naturally, without a mighty and incomprehensible wise Designer!
When you take a good look at such a beautiful butterfly, you will not only discover that there must be a Creator of life (when you see the caterpillar), but that God can also give new Life to what is dead (when you see the butterfly)
And that is also exactly what we need, because every person is doomed because of sin.
What a grace, that we may know, that God provides Life, Eternal Life. Not just after dying, but already now! A rebirth, a whole new beginning.
Anyone who recognizes to Him, that by his sins he deserves death, and asks for forgiveness may receive that new Life, now and forever.
And like a caterpillar clings to the earth, but a butterfly flies towards heaven, so is the life of a true Christian.
Someone told me, “My wife and I were before members of the Roman Catholic Church, but we didn’t practice it anymore.
When we received our first baby, and held it in our hands, it made us silent.
Those little hands, those little feet, everything was so extremely beautiful, it really was a miracle …
A little later I knelt somewhere in front of a chair, and I have thanked God for that.
I understood: we have not done this; this miracle proved to me that there is a mighty God Who can give new life.
Without my knowing, my wife had also thanked God!
From that moment on, we both started to consciously seek God.
We too wanted ‘a new life’. And it says in the Bible: “He who seeks finds,” and the Lord has made that true.
He brought us into contact with true believers. We bought a Bible. And we saw that our old life, even though we lived ‘neatly’, was sinful, and we deserved the judgment of a holy God, and we could not just make a new beginning ourselves.
We had to first find forgiveness for all that old life.
And then God showed us the cross, where the Lord Jesus hanged. He who came from heaven died there, on that Cross, for our sins.
At a certain point we knelt down before God again.
First my wife, and I a little later. We have confessed our sins to Him … And we’ve believed His Word, that says, that whoever confesses his sins receives forgiveness from him, remission, on account of the finished work of the Christ.
That was also a kind of birth, the new birth, a new life. God has made us His children. We still often fell and stumbled, like any child is doing; Still we belong to Him. He cares for us, and we thank Him for that, every day.”
Twitter: @SchoemakerHarry
Website 1: https://devotionals.harryschoemaker.nl
Website 2: http://bijbelplaatjes.nl
He who finds Him find a new life