How long do you want to live? Ask and receive by Grace.

We often perform a "celebration of life" for our parents and grandparents who leave this world at or after the "ripe" old age of 70. Anything less that 70 is usually a sad affair. But believer, this "man living for 70 years is okay" orientation is not God's decree nor His desire for you and I in Christ. It is the fate of man under God's wrath and anger (under the letter that kills) as Moses wrote in Psalm 90-

7"For we have been consumed by Your anger,

And by Your wrath we are terrified.

8 You have set our iniquities before You,

Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.

9 For all our days have passed away in Your wrath;

We finish our years like a sigh.

10 The days of our lives are seventy years;

And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,

Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;

For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

11 Who knows the power of Your anger?

For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath."

The above is the life and length of days of man sandwiched between God's wrath. It is the life of a man whose sins God remembers and who is facing God's anger. Christ suffered and died to deliver us from this kind of life. Isaiah prophesied about His sufferings for us in Isaiah 53 and the glories that follow in Isaiah 53 and 54. See one of such "glories" in Isaiah 54-

9" “For this is like the waters of Noah to Me;

For as I have sworn

That the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth,

So have I sworn

That I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.

10 For the mountains shall depart

And the hills be removed,

But My kindness shall not depart from you,

Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”

Says the Lord, who has mercy on you."

Because of Christ's sacrifice, we who believe Him will never experience God's wrath: 

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God." Romans 5:9.

In Christ, our iniquities are no longer set before God. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, He no longer remembers them: "and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Hebrews 10:17.

Christ says of we who believe Him: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." John 5:24.

God's judgment is upon all who do not believe. His righteousness demands that every sin be punished to the uttermost. Because He loved us so and does not want any to perish, He sent His own Son to bear the judgment for our entire lifetime of sin. See John 3:16.

The wages of sin is death. One death. The same kind of death that Adam died after he sinned and passed on this curse of death to all of his descendants. See 1 Corinthians 15-

21 "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."

This death that is through Adam is not necessarily immediate. Recall that Adam did not drop dead physically right after his death sentence came into effect. God told him in Genesis 2:17-

"and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'"

After disobeying God, Adam existed on earth in physical form for almost a thousand years. To God, "a thousand years are like a day that has just gone by." Psalm 90:4.

See Adam's "death sentence" in Genesis 3- 

17 "Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;

In toil you shall eat of it

All the days of your life.

18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,

And you shall eat the herb of the field.

19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

Till you return to the ground,

For out of it you were taken;

For dust you are,

And to dust you shall return.”"

Sickness is "death begun." Lack is "death begun." Toiling with sweat and stress and having little or nothing to show for it is "death begun." Fast-tracked ageing is "death begun." Death is a process that encompasses a downward spiral of earthly ills and ends in everlasting death in hell. 

But this judgment of death (including all of its symptoms of earthly ills) is no longer for we who are in Christ. We who believe have been made alive in Christ. 1 Corinthians 15-

21 "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."

Good health is "life begun." Making wise decisions is "life begun." In Christ, we get to have life and have it more abundantly- this is why He came. It's a matter of much of life we want. He Himself said in Psalm 91:16-

With long life I will satisfy him,

And show him My salvation.”

We drink and say "I'm satisfied" when we have satisfied our thirst. So how much of long life (the Christ kind of life lived in health, wholeness and prosperity) do we want to be FREELY satisfied with? Just 70 years or much more and with Christ's kind of excellent health and prosperity? The power of life and death is in what we speak. See Proverbs 18-

20 "A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth;

From the produce of his lips he shall be filled.

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

And those who love it will eat its fruit."

When your believing is right, right living will follow, even right living concerning the words that we speak. By God's grace, we GET TO speak the good we want to see into our lives and into the lives of others. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us transforms us, teaches us to speak life and frees us from the confines of wrong believing that make us speak death instead of the life-giving word of faith that we have in Christ. So let's keep on utterly trusting and depending on the Lord for our every need, putting no confidence in what we think we can do by ourselves. 

Believe right and you will live right.