It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man: November 2010

Monday, November 15, 2010

Hereafter

Often times, the passing away of someone reminds me once again of how precious life can be and also how life can be lost so suddenly without any prior warning at all. Today, I attended a memorial service of a church friend who passed away suddenly last week in her sleep. I am reminded once again of how the lives of your loved ones can be lost all of a sudden and causing one to question if there is indeed a place where you will be going after you have passed away from this present time and space.

Being a Christian myself, I know that I will be seeing my LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ face to face after my life here on earth is finished. My affirmation comes from this passage – 1 Cor 15:50-58 from the Bible whom my God, the Father has written and protected for centuries.

During the memorial service, my church pastor brought up the topic of Death. Death comes to all men and as a matter of fact, all of us are proceeding on the journey to death right here, right now. No matter what you are doing, or how successful you are in life, you will still die one day. This is because of sin. Rom 3:23 depicts that all of us are sinful men and separated from God. The repayment for being sinful is death.

Death is a kind of separation and as pointed out by my pastor, there are three kinds of death. They are namely, Physical Death, Spiritual Death and Second Death. All these three are separation in nature. Physical Death separates us from our loved ones. Spiritual Death separates us from the Only True God (YHWH). Second Death separates unbelieving men from the Christians who are Saints with Christ in heaven. If a person ever go through Second Death, he or she will be eternally separated from YHWH and His children (John 1:12) forever. There will definitely be no turning back after Second Death (Rev 20:14-15).

In my opinion, God created seasonal change to show us an analogy of life and death. Springtime is a beginning of life. While summertime shows us life in action, the coming of autumn brings the passing away of life with trees shedding leaves and animals going into hibernation. With the coming of winter, it brings about death to all life forms, cold and dark.

My friends, you do not have to be like the folks in the movie, “Hereafter” to be looking for psychics to know about life after death. You can be sure if you trust in Jesus Christ today. He has written the Bible (Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth) to show Himself to us and help us to understand Eternal Life (John 17:3).

My friend may have passed away physically but I am sure that she definitely need not go through Spiritual Death or Second Death simply because she is in a relationship with Jesus Christ. I look forward to the Day where I can see her again in heaven…