This beautiful explanation of life and death is too wonderful not to pass on. Read it closely. Let God speak to you through it. Then pass it on to someone who would benefit from it.   Pastor Tim

Dear Friend,

As I prepare my heart for my mother’s passing on from this life to the next I was inspired to write these words. I wanted to share them with you.

The Assurance of Faith

There are many questions that man has pondered from the beginning of his creation. Chief among those is what happens to our person when we die.

Some believe that life on earth is the extent of our existence, and others believe that our person carries on to a spiritual realm, of these there are many variations. In deciding what to believe a person is wise to search out the most dependable source of truth. The Bible has been the most scrutinized spiritual source of truth and continues to pass every test. It is in fact, not the words of mere mortals writing their own ideas, but the words of God impressed upon men by the Holy Spirit. The Bible has much to say about the transition from life to death to life again. Let’s examine its contents to see what light it sheds for us regarding this subject.

In the first century new Christians or followers of Christ were looking for answers to these very same questions. A disciple of Christ and later an Apostle, named John, wrote a letter explaining many spiritual truths, including this one.

He writes in 1 John 5:13 “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

Notice in his writing that the operative word that affects the entire statement is the word “know”. He didn’t say hope or wish, he said know. Those who believe in the name of the Son of God may know that they have eternal life. How can they know? The answer is, through faith.

This is the very same faith that we place in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and the reconciliation of our relationship with God the Father. In Acts 4:12 we learn that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

Only Jesus can provide eternal salvation because he alone is the acceptable sacrifice of God. Many religions have wonderful ideas concerning pious acts and moral living but where they go astray from the truth is the belief that man can through some act of his own, earn or deserve or work his way into heaven. This is foolishness.

Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

It is by grace and grace alone, that we are saved, through faith. Through faith in Christ we can know that we know that we are saved from eternal separation from God. Therefore there is no reason for the believer in Christ to fear death or its consequences.

I Corinthians 15:54 -57 shows us this through these words, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The question that grace demands us to ask is, why? Why did God sacrifice his own beloved Son for sinful humanity? The Scriptures point us to the answer.

Romans 5:8 tells us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were sinners, Christ died for us.”

In a familiar verse John 3:16 the answer is once again made clear. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John goes on to say in verse seventeen, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

It was love. Love for you and me was the motivation of God’s heart in making the greatest sacrifice ever given. He surrendered Christ to pain, humiliation, torture, abandonment, and death on a cross so that you and I could have our sins forgiven, our relationships with God reconciled, and our eternal lives secured. To this fact the entire Scriptures point to. Through faith in Christ we are assured of these three promises.

Our role is to receive his act of grace by faith and to respond to his love and kindness with praise, worship and thanksgiving. We are called each day to live in the faith and knowledge that God loves us, desires relationship with us, and has secured our eternity.

The Apostle Paul the writer of the book of Romans asks the question in Romans chapter eight, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine, or nakedness or danger or sword?” He answers his own question a verse later with these words, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us form the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing! Absolutely nothing can tear the one who has placed his faith in Christ away from the loving arms of God. Therefore, we do not fear death, we celebrate it. We absolutely miss our loved ones who pass on from this life to the next but we are assured through faith that they have graduated to their eternal home, and we console ourselves with the fact that we too who have faith in Christ will reside there one day ourselves. Death is but a short separation from those we love. We understand it as merely the passing away of our flesh, as our person continues on.

In his revelation from God, the Apostle John describes a picture of heaven with these words, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ ”

The assurance of heaven is the fruit of our faith in Christ. Armed with this knowledge believers in Christ know how to prepare their hearts for their passing on, and the passing on of those they love. To God be the glory.

Paul Keeler