All of us, me included, make billions if not trillions of decisions in our life time about our future.
Have you ever thought about the number of decisions we make in one day related to our future? We get up in the morning and decide what we are going to wear to the workplace. We decide where we will have lunch. We decide to stop for a few grocery items returning home that evening. We decide what we will do between arriving home and bedtime. Between these few decisions are perhaps thousands I haven’t even mentioned.
Any decision that extends beyond the time it takes to breathe our next breath is a decision of the future, and we have no guarantee of our next breath.
We buy items on credit, such as homes and automobiles, expecting to be around to make the payments. We plan for retirement and purchase life insurance for the “distant future.”
We make plans for college and a business career. We marry and have children. We plan our vacation which is only months away. We plan to take the children to the zoo the next week-end, which is only two days away. We plan to dine out with our spouse this very evening.
All the plans you and I make are taken for granted most of the time. We never really think about them not being fulfilled. However, before I take a drink of the coffee I just made, I could be dead. Before I get my leg in my pants in the morning, I could be in the next life, either in Heaven or hell. How many have gone to work in the morning and never returned in the evening? How many have gone to the concert, and not returned in the evening? How many have opened their car door and gotten in for the last time?
There was a man Jesus spoke of who believed he would be around to build bigger and better barns,
“But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” (Luke 2:20)
That brings up another point. All of us have those “things” we like to hang on to. Think about this though, once we are gone, someone else will own them or they will be discarded. It won’t be our house anymore. Another family will live in it. It won’t be our fishing pole; someone else will be fishing with it. Others will be wearing our jewelry. Our money will be spent by someone who didn’t earn it. As with Solomon we concur,
“18Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. 19And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19)
Billions of dollars are spent yearly on the upkeep of our bodies. Likewise, much time is spent to satisfy the body’s needs and pleasures. How much thought is given concerning our souls? The life expectancy of our bodies is less than a flash of time, in comparison to the eternity of our souls. Jesus said,
“26For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 27For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 28Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:26-28)
Six days later Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain, and they witnessed a preview of Jesus as He would come in His glory. When the Church joins Him at the Rapture, we will see the same transfigured body of Christ. When He comes at the end of the Tribulation, the second coming, the world will see Him transfigured as the Son of God.
There is the absolute guarantee of every believer in Jesus Christ seeing Him in His glory and being with Him for eternity. However, there is no guarantee of our next breath for any of us. Those who do not know Jesus as their own personal Savior are playing Russian roulette with their eternal soul.
I’m at the age where I actually read the obituaries. For you young ones, your time will come. Old people whose bodies have finally worn out are not the only ones in the obituaries. Many of the young, more and more it appears, are included.
The younger we are the more death is taken lightly. I am of the opinion that God has placed within each of us a mental attitude that we won’t die for a long time. It will happen to someone else, but not us. Death is the furthest thing from our minds. I think it is fantastic that He has done this, because if He had not, we would all be a basket case, worrying about our time to die. We would be afraid to get up in the morning or even go to bed at night. Thank God, His grace has provided this for us.
However, He still wants us to be aware that we don’t know our time of death. We don’t know if it is years, months, weeks, days, minutes, or seconds away. As a Christian, there is no reason for me to fear death, and I don’t. I’m not too keen on dying however, but even in that, He promises to be with me.
The Lord also wants us to know that He will come for His Church, his bride, in an event called the Rapture prior to the period commonly called the Tribulation. None of us know when this will occur, no more than we know when we are going to die. It could be at our next breath. We don’t know. It will happen so fast, we will be here one second and gone the next.
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)
The Christian, whether by death or the Rapture, has God’s full assurance that we will be with the Lord Jesus. We are insured by the best insurance company there is, The Eternal Life Insurance Company of Almighty God. The premiums have all been paid by the Son of God, and it will pay out in full upon our death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first.
To the contrary, those who refuse God’s Son Jesus Christ, have no hope. There is no guarantee of eternal life, only a guarantee of judgment and eternal damnation.
Those who disclaim Jesus claim hell. One of two things is going to happen soon, and I have no idea which will come first. Will it be the death of the body, or the return of Jesus to retrieve His own? Either way, prepare for eternity. Make sure your eternal destiny is guaranteed.
Grant Phillips