Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Death, Part One

Last week I got the unexpected sad news of a close family friend’s death. In the days that followed, and during my quiet times with the Lord, the theme of death was consistently in my Scripture readings. The following morning, after hearing that our friend had died, I read these words in Psalm 73:25-26, “Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart.” God was speaking comfort to my own heart and personally letting me know through His Word that He was fully aware of the situation we were all dealing with. By passing on what God was saying in Psalm 73 to family and friends, I hoped that they too would feel God’s comforting presence in the midst of their hurting pain and loss. Despite the fact that our friend’s physical heath did fail him, he remained spiritually strong because God sustained him. God was with Him in his fleshly earthly life and now He was escorting him into his heavenly eternal spiritual life! That right there is reason to celebrate even when we are grieving!

I no sooner got done reading the words in Psalm73:25-26, and I was lead to Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.” These Home Touched postings are about God teaching us so we can grow in His wisdom, not ours. When I share the practicality of what takes place in my own life, it is my prayer that you will then see how God and His wisdom speak into my everyday life through His Holy Spirit and His Word. Having said that, I need to express the urgency there is in relationship to what God wants us to glean from Psalm 90:12. When I talked about being renewed, the posting from two weeks ago, I said that our time on this earth is short. God is reinforcing that urgent message once again in Psalm 90:12. How am I using the limited time that I have been given to be on this earth? Do I spend my time focusing on me or God? Is what I think and speak void of God’s input, or do I think and speak what God thinks and says according to the Truth of His Word? Here is the bottom line - death is a permanent ending to the human life we have here on this earth, but it is also the beginning journey to eternal life. Here is the simple truth - we are all going to live forever! Where are you choosing to live? That decision is not God’s. That decision is up to you. Will it be heaven because you chose to ask Jesus the Son of God to come into your life, or will it be hell because you chose to reject Him?

Whether I like it or not, God is God and I am not. God is the Creator and I am not. I am the creation of God’s hand. It is not my hand that created me. The boundaries of how this world and its people are to work is God’s doing and not my doing. God’s Word makes it very clear that heaven and hell are places that we will ultimately choose to live in for all of eternity. They are not places that come from a made up dream, a fairy tale, or whatever “spiritual” thought or explanation we humans may come up with. Here is the third and last Scripture that the Lord took me to regarding death. It is what Jesus says in John 14:1-3, 6, “Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will be with me where I am....I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

We are going to live forever. It’s up to us to decide where we want to go. I have chosen to accept Jesus as my God, and these postings are reflective of the relationship that I have with Him. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my eternal life is with Him in heaven. We have no knowledge of how much time we have on this earth. But I am convinced that every one of us has gotten a taste of heaven and a taste of hell. What do you want to taste for all of eternity?

From this day forward, I am praying that you will no longer be troubled by the troubles of this life, and that you will trust in God to help you with them. God wants you to be with Him now and forever. He wants you to be in awe of the room that He has waiting for you. It has your name on it. Be ready for Him, for you do not know the day or the hour of your death. Your greatest decision in this earthly life will be your decision about Jesus, and deciding if you accept or reject that He is the way, the truth and the life for you!