Hello and welcome to Van Life Devotions. In the classic movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, Indiana searches for his kidnapped father, who was taken while seeking the Holy Grail which gave eternal life. After rescuing him, they head to the grail’s location, pursued by Nazis. When Henry is shot, Indiana must navigate deadly traps to find the grail and use its holy water to save his father’s life.
While that was just a movie, The Bible though says a lot about immortality and eternal life. In one place, it says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). It is one of the great reasons to be a follower of Jesus - to have eternal life.
For some, living forever isn’t that appealing. However, when the bible talks about eternal life it is not simply the quantity (how long) but the quality of the life (how good). There are various descriptions in the Bible that refer to the quality of how good eternal life is in heaven saying, that “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain”(Revelation 21:4 NIV).
Why be a follower of Jesus? To have eternal life.
Arthur Stace became so grateful to have eternal life that he wanted others to know about it. He would walk the streets of Sydney writing on payments in yellow chalk the word Eternity. It is estimated that he wrote Eternity up to half a million times. And yet for the first twenty years no one knew who wrote Eternity in chalk around the city. He would get up around 4am every morning so as not to be seen and wrote Eternity at least a hundred times a day. Arthur Stace did not want the attention on himself. He wanted people to think about Eternity and to divert their attention to God for he believes that no other power can transform a person’s life. You see Arthur grew up in a dysfunctional family, suffered in WWI, then fell on hard time during the great depression. He was a gambler and alcoholic and lived on the streets homeless. He checked himself into a psychiatric clinic at Rozelle but felt that it didn’t help. Back on the streets, he would often spend the night in police cells.
On the 6th of August 1930 he went to St Barnabas Church on Broadway to a men’s service and it wasn’t to get religion. Word had got around that after these meetings, every man got a cup of tea and a rock cake. God must had stirred his heart that night for after hearing the powerful preaching of Rev Hammond he drank his tea and ate his rock cake, then left alone, crossed Broadway, and walked into Victoria Park. There, under a large fig tree, in the dark he knelt and wept. Then he cried out a simple prayer: “God be merciful to me a sinner!” God was merciful to Arthur Stace that night. He gave up the grog, stopped smoking and gambling, and refrained from swearing and blaspheming.
A few years later, on 14th November 1932, Arthur attended an outreach where Baptist preacher John Ridley preached on Eternity saying that he wishes he could echo eternity across the city. That night Arthur was challenged and went wrote Eternity on pavements over the next 35 years from 1932 to 1967 the year he passed away.
Gradually it became known who was writing Eternity, but Arthur shied from the limelight because he wanted people to know of the God of eternity.
On New Years Eve 1999 five million Sydneysiders partied in and around the city culminating in an incredible 24-minutes fireworks display. At the end, a fiery cascade erupted downwards from the Bridge’s deck. And then, as the smoke cleared, it came into view – the first written word of the third millennium, in distinctive copperplate script: Eternity.
The Bible teaches that eternal life is a gift of God’s grace (Romans 6.23) and for those who believe in Jesus this gift is given now (1 John 5:13). You can start experiencing eternal life now, which, as C.S. Lewis wrote, “goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before”.
How can you have eternal life? Trust and obey. Trust in faith that Jesus is God’s Son who saved you on the cross. And follow Jesus as Lord by obeying His teachings.
I invite you to pray this prayer with me:
Father God.
I am sorry that I am a sinner.
Thank you for forgiving me.
Grant to me the gift of Eternity.
Enable me to put my trust in You and
to obey Your teachings.
In Jesus’ name
Amen
David Moyes
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