It's Inevitable

    I just learned that another friend of mine is dying. Without previous warning, he began to experience what he thought were mild symptoms that gave him concerns and went for a check-up. Stage four liver cancer. A follow-up CAT scan revealed tumors in both his liver and his lungs. He still is unsure what he will do, but the prognosis offers no hope.
    Death is all around us. Every time I visit someone in the hospital I am reminded that in that very building, someone is in process of slipping into eternity. People in my neighborhood are dying. Students I went to high school with are dying. People I pastored for many years are dying. Death is all around us.
    And there is no escape. When news of our own impending death comes, it will be a surprise. Most of us go before we expect to. With all the technology we have harnessed, and no matter how much money you may spend to get the best of physicians, you will not be able to hold death back.
    Sorry; don’t mean to be morbid. But death is a reality of life and I think we spend far too little energy contemplating it and thereby preparing. Nelson Bell’s famous quote is so true: “Only those who are prepared to die are truly prepared to live.”
    Are you?
    Are you prepared to die? It’s going to happen before you think. Do you know where you will spend eternity? Are you sure you are going to heaven?
    That is why we do what we do at The Bridge. Everything about our ministry is about getting the word out: Jesus died so that you can live! He defeated death with His resurrection. He overcame death for all of us! If you are connected with Jesus, believing that He died for you and rose again, trusting in Him for your forgiveness, than death is only a portal into an expanded life, with all of the benefits and none of the liabilities of this life!
    John reminded his readers of this, “And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life. I write this to you who believe in the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life” (1 John 5:11-13).
    Death is all around us. But for the believer, LIFE is all around us! Death only means expanded and eternal life! If you have not received Christ, do so! Receive the kind of life that will never end. Then while this temporal death we are all facing may still come as a surprise, it will be the most pleasant of surprises, as you step into God’s presence and forever enjoy the life He intends you to live.