Obviously I'm not actually dead. I'm close. I'm laying here, snuggled on my huge comfy couch in my family room, with my family. Barely moving or doing anything. But recently, I have heard people talk about death and what some refer to as the after life and something I was just thinking reminded me of things I should say, write and tell.
Yesterday we were sitting in Wendy's eavesdropping on a conversation 2 men were having. I'm not sure it's actually eavesdropping if you are two tables away and can hear them with ease. But nevertheless; the first man was talking to the second man about hope and fear. He was relaying how that some people believe they will go to heaven because they "know the rules and try their best to follow the rules" but in the end they fear and have no hope in the rules. But what if you could have hope and know that in the end there was no reason to fear. That the rules didn't ensure hope without fear but trust in Christ assures us of where will will spend eternity and gives us life and death without fear.
The second was a YouTube video between an atheist and a "religious" host of a normal talk show. The host said " don't you think that as an atheist you have nothing to live for?" To which the guest answered " actually I have nothing to die for. There is nothing in the end but the end ." How sad!
There is something I once remember my mom saying to someone about
eternity. She asked them this question: if I don't believe that religion
is what you say it is, what will happen to me when I die?
Response:
well, nothing. You just wont have the chance to maybe spend eternity in
heaven. You will just lay in the ground and that will be the end.
After
sharing what she believed with the visitor her conclusion was this: If
you are right, and I don't believe what you believe I have nothing to
lose. But, if what I believe is true and you don't believe what I
believe. You will spend eternity in hell. So in the end I will stick with
what I believe as truth. But where will you stand?
Harsh? People who don't
believe may say so. But those of us who believe have no fear. With live
our lives with hope and certainty. But right now as you read this...where will you stand? Where do you stand? With God.
I truly believe what I believe. I believe that Christ died for the sin I committed, and will commit. I believe that when God looks at my sin he sees the blood of his Son covering the darkness of my heart and the filthiness of my sin. I believe that when my life is over, albeit in 20 minutes or twenty years, I will spend eternity in heaven. Not because I followed the rules, or served at church in everyway possible, spent all my days feeding the poor or caring for my family. But, because I simply believed that what Christ did for me was sufficient. That his death and ressurection was and is enough to satisfy the debt of my sin. But with that belief comes a call. An invitation and even maybe a command. To die to self. So if I follow that invitation or command, I am, or should be dead. To myself. (Luke 9:23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.) Hence, I am dead.
Whether you believe in God, or heaven or eternity or hell there are a string of verses that have been running through my head alot since hearing that conversation in Wendy's that day. Matthew 7:22-23. " Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" and also, Titus 3:5, "Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us". Romans 5:6-11, "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For
if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of
His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His
life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."
Maybe what I believe isn't popular or amazing to you. But the simplicity of its truth is amazing to me.
