Every man and woman longs to find the fountain of youth, to live forever and to be eternally young. Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us of the One who has made everything appropriate in its time has also “set eternity in our hearts.” Mankind doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to grow old, he wants to live forever. Men and women desire to have the perfect body and the perfect mind. We long to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not get tired and to walk and not become weary. We do not like the thought of getting older and facing our own mortality even when the signs are all around us. Billions of dollars are spent every year on plastic surgery, wrinkle creams and dyes to get rid of the grey and the signs of aging!

  The identity and self-worth of many people are attached to their outward appearance and perceived ability to turn back the hands of time. Today people suffer through painful cosmetic surgery, grueling workouts and crash diets to reach that goal, but we are imperishable (1 Corinthians 9:25). Brothers and sisters, nothing is worthy to be compared with the glorious fountain of youth that is to be revealed to us.
  Paul says, all creation is subjected along with mankind to the slavery of corruption. The body wrinkles, hair turns grey, we grow old! The rose that blooms in all its beauty soon fades and its petals fall. All living creatures fall prey to the “survival of the fitness” and have an appointed time to live and an appointed time to die. And the Bible says of man, “It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.” The photographs of long ago that capture us in our prime cannot keep us there because this world is under a slavery of corruption. Every champion’s fame soon fades and is replaced by another.
  Solomon vividly captures man’s physical decline to the slavery of corruption in Ecclesiastes 12:1-4: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them: before the sun, the light, the moon and the stars are darkened (failing eyesight), and clouds return after the rain (aches and pains); in the day that the watchmen of house (the legs) tremble, and mighty men stoop (bowed shoulders), the grinding ones stand idle because they are few (loss of teeth), and those who look through windows grow dim; and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughter of song will sing softly (loss of hearing).”
   In contrast, can you imagine the flower that never fades and loses it’s fragrance or the family pet that never dies? How about furniture that never needs to be dusted, the car that never needs washed, lawns to be mowed or meals to be cooked? Is such an existence possible? A glimmer of this reality is seen in the wilderness march where the shoes of the Hebrews did not wear out for forty years.
  Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:50: “Now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” Thus Paul says in verse 51: “Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15: 51, 53). Therefore, an incorruptible, immortal, glorified body awaits you and I that are in Christ. “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
  And there my friends is where you’ll find the real fountain of youth!

In His love, 

Elizabeth