Last night on my drive home I was listening to the radio (yes, country again) and a new song has the lyrics, "everybody want to go to heaven but nobody want to go now." Now, I'm not one to get my theology from country music, but there is something very profound in that statement. And there's truth in it.
As believers we talk about how wonderful heaven will be, and how we can't wait to get there. But nobody wants to go there NOW! We hold on to earth so tightly--even the good things--friends, family, work and we don't want to give it up. There is so much we want to do before we "go." We talk about heaven, and we're afraid of death! But death is the vessel the Lord has chosen as the catapult into the heaven we so long for.
I'm starting to see death as a beautiful thing, not as the scary and unknown. Dear beloved brethren, may we all long for heaven and long for it NOW!
4 comments:
1 Corinthians 15:26 is also good to factor into one's thinking about death. While it may not hold fear for a Christian, it also shouldn't be embraced too closely. It is, after all, the last great enemy.
Yeah, thanks for the thoughts, Nathan. Death is the enemy. How comforting that we have a victorious God who conquered death and has triumphed over that enemy and promised the same for those who are in Him!
Yes, as much as it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I must admit that I agree with nathan. We Christians are given a grace at death to face our final enemy victoriously, but we are given a daily living grace while we remain in our bodies on earth.
I think the reason people-including Christians-fear death even when we see the sin and fallenness of this world, is that we have adapted ourselves to living in the fallen world with its sin. It's all we know.
Yeah...I love later in the chapter 1 Cor. 15:55
"O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
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