EASTER: IS IT POSSIBLE TO AVOID DEATH?

By Ada Brownell

EXCERPT FROM SWALLOWED BY LIFE:

MYSTERIES OF DEATH, RESURRECTION AND THE ETERNAL

Chapter One

An old gentleman leaned on his cane and peered into the cherry-red 1923 Model T Roadster. It glistened like a new car, but just a few years earlier had rested in decay almost forgotten.

          “This is just like the first car I ever had,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes.

          He and his son were examining four antique cars brought to a senior care center as part of the National Nursing Home Week celebration.

          The man, like the Model T, was almost an antique himself.

          Before the old car found redemption, from the front bumper down to the brown leather on the rumble seat, the old Ford stood waiting for one last trip—to the junkyard. Many vehicles like it have been retrieved from gullies, from behind the barn, and from buildings and junkyards, metal-consuming rust eating away at running boards, fenders, hoods, engines, and other vital parts.

           Rust is the reddish-orange coating of ferric hydroxide, the substance that causes oxidation of metal in the car’s body. When metal rusts, it breaks down until its elements disappear into the air and into the earth, leaving holes.

          Doctors tell us oxidation occurs in the human body, too, as we age and develop diseases. We aren’t eaten by rust, but oxidation causes cell damage, and that is why nutritionists recommend we consume foods rich in antioxidants, such as blueberries and green tea. In the human body, life-essential oxygen combusts and produces by-products referred to as oxygen free radicals, which cause aging.

          Oxidation is part of the second law of thermodynamics, a scientific term we seldom talk about but see all the time when there is a loss of electrons in an atom. Every barn you see with the roof caved in is an example of this law, which says in simple terms that everything eventually falls apart because energy becomes less organized with time.

          Our bodies do the same thing. As we age our sight grows dim, the ears less discerning of sounds. Our memory slows. Our muscles and joints don’t work as well. Our skin wrinkles. Our cardiovascular system becomes clogged or diseased. Our lungs and vocal cords exhibit wear and tear. The body’s defense weakens and diseases take up residence in us. Then, like an old automobile, one functioning organ goes, and then another, until the loss of a vital part is enough to kill.

Death for the human body is connected to the degradation of matter. Our mortal flesh isn’t designed to last forever. Unless taken by death prematurely, like the unrestored Model T covered in rust and with an engine that won’t run, the human body wears out or just quits.

As I explained before, I started studying about death and life after we lost our beautiful eldest daughter, Carolyn, to cancer in 1990. A born-again Christian who could quickly tell someone else what to believe, I found my faith challenged.

When I knew Carolyn was dying, over and over I prayed, tears streaming down my face, my insides feeling ripped out, “Where are you, God?”

My guts twisted with anger and doubt. Fear choked me as I wondered if what Jesus said about eternal life was really true.

I’d heard and read what the Bible has to say. It says at death we will immediately be with the Lord (Luke 23:43, Ecclesiastes 12:6–8) and at the resurrection, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, our flesh will be changed into an immortal body with all-new parts that never age, get sick, or die—even if that flesh has already turned to dust.

Probably because of my experiences and what I learned on the medical beat at the newspaper, I decided to investigate if there is evidence we are more than a mere body.

I knew a journalist’s assignment sometimes goes beyond the obvious. Facts aren’t material objects that can be felt or seen. Through testimony and evidence, truth can be learned. Interviewing witnesses, experts, and victims and making visits to the scene help a reporter present facts to the public.

          Yet, when the story is all told, newspaper readers or television viewers react differently. Some believe what is reported; others do not. Some doubt the reliability of the reporter. Others assume the media conspires to deceive the public. A few believe the persons interviewed are liars.

          Those who believe take the plunge into faith. I took that plunge and believe Jesus when He said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:26).

          No matter what you believe about life after death, it takes faith. But there is evidence, and the eyewitnesses' testimony is recorded in the Bible. It's your decision.

©Copyright Ada Brownell 2012

SWALLOWED BY LIFE: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal

                                          By Ada Brownell

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06

Do you know evidence shows we’re more than a physical body? The author, a prolific religion writer and retired medical journalist, talks about the evidence; the wonder of life with all its electrical systems; the awesome truth about cell death and regeneration; mysteries surrounding the change from mortal to immortal; where we go when our body dies; resurrection; and a glimpse at what we will do in heaven. Questions and answers make this non-fiction inspirational book a great text for group study. It’s written for support groups, religion classes, people with chronic or terminal illness, individuals who fear death or are curious about it, the grieving, and those who give them counsel.

An excerpt from Swallowed by Life was featured in the June 2, 2013, “Reading for Spiritual Health” edition of The Pentecostal Evangel.

Where you can find Swallowed by Life:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/Jnc1rW

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/JnbKVL

Booksamillion.com http://ow.ly/cJmx8

And you can see reviews on GoodReads http://ow.ly/cJmMe

Christian Publishers Outlet also has the paperback

Ada Brownell bio

Ada Brownell has been writing for Christian publications since age 15 and spent much of her life as a daily newspaper reporter. She has a B.S. degree in Mass Communications and worked most of her career at The Pueblo Chieftain in Colo., where she spent the last seven years as a medical writer. After moving to Springfield, MO in her retirement, she continues to free lance for Christian publications and write non-fiction and fiction books. She is critique group leader of Ozarks Chapter of American Christian Writers.

She is author of Imagine the Future You, a Bible study; Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the Catapult, fiction released Jan. 15, 2013; Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal, Bible study released Dec. 6, 2011; and Confessions of a Pentecostal, published by the Assemblies of God’s Gospel Publishing House in 1978, out- of-print but released in 2012 for Kindle. All the books are available in paper or for Kindle.

      Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/AdaBrownellWritingMinistries

     Twitter: @adellerella

     Blog: http://inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com Stick to Your Soul Encouragement

     Amazon Ada Brownell author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06

DOES JESUS LIVE? RESURRECTION: EVIDENCE, OR PROOF?

By Ada Brownell

I imagine you’ve read or heard the true stories about someone taken to the morgue, and then a hand moves, an eye opens, or a leg lifts, and the person is alive.

Perhaps you were one of the hundreds who purchased Heaven is For Real, the story of a young boy who emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories about  heaven. The book about little Colton by Todd Burpo, a Nebraska pastor, has 7,781 reviews and now is a movie.

I attended a writers’ conference where the keynote speaker was Cecil Muriphey, who wrote 90 Minutes in Heaven with Don Piper, who lived again after declared dead at the scene of an accident where his car was crushed under the wheels of a truck .A pastor waiting at the scene 90 minutes later said God told him to pray for the dead man. He did, and Piper immediately breathed and came to life. The book is another best seller.

I tell in my book, Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal, about Lynn Orr, a man I knew in Denver, who had a heart attack. He said one minute he lay in a hospital bed, and the next his bare feet stood on a smooth street paved with gold. In the distance, he saw a beautiful gate and a city. He smelled gorgeous flowers, and heard singing and rejoicing. He talked with Jesus. Then he was back in the bed, worrying his body wasn’t covered as medical personnel zapped his heart and brought him back.

I don’t remember how long Lynn was said  to be clinically dead, but he testified to the glories of heaven and a few weeks after I heard him speak, he went to be with Jesus. He said after seeing heaven, he no longer desired to live on earth.

To many people, these testimonies are proof of life after death. They are wonderful to hear. Yet, are they proof?

In Swallowed by Life, I present evidence from medical science that we are more a body.  I go into the miracles of cell death and rejuvenation, where our bodies die and are replaced one cell at a time until after seven years our whole body has died and been renewed except for the central nervous system, and some evidence shows even dead brain cells sometimes rejuvenate.

But the greatest evidence is before our eyes all the time. We begin life as a fertilized egg and we’re the person we became from the day God’s life burst into that egg. We grew in the womb and were born at seven pounds or so, and we’re still the same person.

I or you could lose weight, a part of our flesh, and we’re still me or you—whoever we were before.

We could lose a leg, an arm, an eye, have diseased  organs removed. A surgeon could even cut out our heart, kidneys, lungs and transplant someone else’s and we would still be who we are.

All the things I mention are evidence we are more than a body. A neurologist told me he believes the brain is the residence of the soul, so perhaps that’s why the neurological system doesn’t die and regenerate constantly as other parts do.

Yet, is that proof we aren’t as connected to our bodies as we thought? I think it’s great evidence, but still it’s not proof.

Why? Because resurrection and salvation are matters of faith. John tells us, “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).

 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever believes in me will never die” (John 10:25-26).

 St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “If you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Jesus said, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).

 The Romans and the Jews never found his body, at least 500 people saw him after the Resurrection, the soldiers testified he was dead, the disciples preached and wrote that they were eyewitnesses, some of them convinced when at first they didn't believe.

On the day of Pentecost, 40 days after the Resurrection, Peter preached in the public square that He'd risen from the dead and 3,000 people believed.

 No one would die for something they knew was a lie, and according the scripture and tradition, all the disciples gave their lives for the faith except Judas, who committed suicide after his betrayal of the Son of God, and John, who died imprisoned on Patmos.

Do you believe? That’s what you need to do, because no one will prove it, and you have to believe in Jesus to live forever. It won't any difference what your relatives print in your obituary about you being in heaven.

It’s your decision.

©Ada Brownell April 14, 2014

· 

Can What You Believe Change You?

By Ada Brownell

I went back to college to complete my degree when I was in my early 40s and from my vantage point of  maturity I watched high school graduates enter the university with strong differing views about religion, politics, morals, and life. They looked different, acted differently, their speech was unique, but when they completed their education they were like little toy marching soldiers, looking alike, acting similarly, using similar vocabulary. Moreover, for the most part their views of religion, politics, morals, and life made them seem as if they’d had their brains reprogrammed to the beliefs of their professors.

 Their parents’ and the church’s teachings were shoved aside.

These students’ lives were changed by what they were taught to think and believe. Yet, the young people would swear they chose to change their own way of thinking.

I was taught Logic in psychology and other classes. I suppose there is some truth to using those techniques, but also a whole lot of error. Often people who try to prove their point through argument start with a premise statement that can’t be proved.  For instance, evolution is taught as fact, but there is no solid evidence for it. It takes as much faith as believing in an Almighty, all-knowing, all-powerful God who is everywhere.

My idea is that argument doesn’t prove anything except who is the best at debate!

In my estimation, the only thing that can be trusted to be true is God’s Word, the Bible. After all, textbooks have to be replaced frequently because the information in them is outdated or discovered to be wrong.

We should guard our minds because future is tied to what we believe. Propaganda and brainwashing literally changed the Soviet Union and Communist China. 

Propaganda affects the way you live and who you are. But more important, so does the Word of God—the Bible. How?

The Apostle Paul said: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature….The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.-- “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:16—22).

In prohibition days when liquor couldn’t be sold legally in the United States, a couple of women preachers set up their tent in a small country city and began to pray for an outpouring of God’s Spirit.

“Who is the wickedest man in town?” they asked.

People said the local bootlegger qualified. So the women raised their voices to God to save the man’s soul. Instead of accepting Jesus as Savior, the liquor maker was furious at his wife for attending the services, where she became a Christian. When she got home one night, he said, “I’m going to kill those preachers.”

Nevertheless, people filled the tent as the women evangelists sang, preached, and offered prayer for the sick.

A lady who had been ill for some time went forward for prayer and was instantly healed. She was the bootlegger’s wife.

The next night the fellow sat in the tent on one of the home-made benches and knelt in the sawdust at the end of the service, weeping at first and then getting pretty loud and excited about the joyful gift he received.

His name was Ennis Surratt, the father of one of our long-time pastors, Hubert Surratt, who pastored then in Lakewood, Colo.

  What Ennis believed definitely changed him.

©Ada Brownell April 2014

 Swallowed by Life http://amzn.com/1466200936