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Considering Death
For a moment, imagine that you have been diagnosed with cancer. The doctors reveal to you that it is inoperable and, ultimately, terminal. The doctors aren’t sure exactly how much longer you have, but it’s not long. All of a sudden, the weight of a truth you’ve known for the entirety of your life comes to the front of your mind - you’re going to die.
Why is it that it takes a moment like this for us to soberly consider the truth of our mortality? We are all going to die. It’s inescapable. If you’re like me, it’s not a pleasant thought and because of that, I usually try to think about something else. Rather than shrink away from a reality that seems unpleasant and scary, I am learning to anchor myself in the truths of God surrounding our physical death. I’d encourage you to take a moment to consider some of these truths as well.
1. Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going. (John 14:1-4). Why should we fear death when Jesus Himself has prepared for us a place to go after we leave our bodies? Jesus says we should not be troubled, but believe!
2. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). We should view death as a natural means of coming to be with the Lord - which is our true home. This should produce courage in us as we consider our own death. Oh, how we should long for that home with Him!
3. Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. (John 11:23-26). The “reality” of the physical death that we all come to is not true reality for those who are faithful to God. We who believe in Jesus experience life through our body’s death. What a marvelous and glorious change death undergoes for the believer!
If you are not a Christian, I wish there were some comfort that I could offer you about when your time on earth is done, but I can’t because God doesn’t offer any hope outside of Himself. The good news (coincidentally this is what the word for the “Gospel” means) is that while you still have life here, you can choose to have eternal life.
Only a Christian can find real hope for one of life’s seemingly hopeless events, and as a Christian, whenever you find yourself confronted with the sobering reality of your own death (or loved ones around you), try to remember these scriptures that God has given to you. If you can do that, you will be much closer to being able to talk about death and the hereafter just as Paul did, “For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:53-57).
