People are afraid of death. People wonder how long they will live, and what will happen to them. I’ve heard it said that history is a conveyor belt of corpses. That was troubling, but it is true. How secure is your footing on this place? Many people believe that if they do a certain thing or live a certain way they will live longer than if they do some other activity or eat some other food. This is probably true.
After this, we all die anyway.
Our lives on earth cease, and we can no longer play, sing, teach, work, talk, share, invest, eat or drive, and the list goes on and on. In this way, I believe most people think. It would be sad to not be able to talk to my children, or my wife, or my friends anymore. They might be sad not to talk to me anymore, and this is what most people dwell on.
This is why they are afraid of death.
There is a certain trepidation people have as they contemplate dying- only because they don’t know what is next. In a sense, it is only because they haven’t done it before. The problem they feel is that we can’t talk to someone who has died, and ask them what it is like on “the other side.”
This seems reasonable.
There are others that fear death because it will stop their progress. Plans are being made, and things are being built to establish a strong foundation on the earth. People plan for things like a home, a good financial standing, or maybe a good college education for kids or grandkids. We strive to be the next Kennedys or the Rockefellers, and in America
Death gets in the way of this planning, and many don’t like death for this reason.
I believe many people fall in these categories in some fashion, and who can blame them? Isn’t it normal to fear death?
I meet with people that are sometimes dying, and sometimes they just know that they have lived many more days already than what they have left. Many people I have met in have died- sometimes just a few months after I met them. Take a look at your local newspaper. There are a multitude of reports to read of people who are no longer here, and this is just in your area! As a benefit to my work, and my browing of a newspaper, I ponder these things.
It would be easy to say as a 31 year old that I have many more years to live, and that I should be able to work many years, and retire, and live with my wife while my kids go off and establish themselves in their own houses and lives. Thus, this cycle of fearing death in their thoughts will begin all over for my children. More and more, I don’t feel this way anymore.
I see helpless looks from people as they speak of a husband or wife who is terminally ill. I see tears, and tears without hope stream from faces of people. I would like to submit today that the more a person knows who God is, and the more He studies God, the more he wants to stay on earth, and tell others about this God. To share the hope God has supplied and live longer to glorify Him become daily passions. I have begun to think that the problem with death is that I can’t glorify God any longer. Forget about pain, unfinished business, lack of years of life, missing my family, my time here to praise, worship, and glorify Him would end. This cannot be just. I want to be able to worship him just as long as Billy Graham. I want to live as long as Adam did, and be able to worship him for 900 years. I want to be here just as long as someone else who lived a long time, and thus got a lot of opportunities to share out loud and with conviction, that He who sits high and lifted up deserves all my time and passions. If I die, I cannot do this anymore.
The world does not and cannot think this way.
As a follower of Christ, I must. O death, where is your sting? If you feel any of the things in the first four paragraphs, that is the sting you feel. Ironically, you may feel it now as you live. With the right focus on God, even losing the ability to glorify God on earth doesn't phase you.
In other words, if I live, I must live to glorify Him. I must use my time to share, and shout and scream his praises, for in the next moment, I may not be able to. But is that really so? Does my glorying in the LORD cease? That must be sad if it is true. However, the greatest truth of death for a Christian is that instead of glorifying Him here, you begin to glorify Him in person, and you can see Him and His glory of which we cannot begin to describe fully. What fear can there be? Here, I can glorify Him in front of others, and the next step is to glorify Him in front of HIM. What a privilege. What an honor.
If God truly doesn’t share all His glory with us here, and if we long to know Him, we must have a strong desire to see Him, and begin to fulfill our fascination with Him. Death is only the beginning. This life is a prelude. Be fascinated with God. The more you seek Him, the more questions you ask, and the more questions you ask, the more questions you ask. In the process, you lose fear of job loss, losing friends, heart attack, or any unspeakable thing that might happen.
Search for him as you would a hidden treasure. Value Him as you would fine gold. Give all your effort, desires, and means to secure Him. (Matt ) In Him is all treasure of wisdom and knowledge (Col
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