Daily Java: “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.”- 1 Corinthians 15:55-57.
Fear of death is so strong, even in people who shouldn’t fear it. It is the way God made us, part of the survival instinct that everybody has.
The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the Christian recognizes that God is in control, and that when he dies, he goes to be with God.
Death is not the end, it is the beginning.
The ancient Egyptians had that part right. They made their tombs with special doors so that the departed could go to the afterlife and do stuff. They gave him food and clothes, furniture and even slaves, freshly killed to serve him in the afterlife.
The problem with their view, though, was that it was wrong. I would imagine the slaves would tell you that, too. They viewed eternal life as just an adjunct to this life, another place to go.
In Jesus, eternal life is the end result of our physical lives. If we have served God in this life, we serve him in that life, too.
We don’t need a bunch of stuff when we go to be with God, because God has all we need. And besides, as Jesus pointed out several times, the afterlife is not like this life.
Relationships will be different, food will be different, there will be an absence of pain and sorrow, of suffering and sickness. In other words, it will be a perfect life, living only to worship the God who made us.
To those outside of Jesus, that sounds horrible and they cannot imagine it. When Hollywood or TV portrays heaven, it is just a white area with people flying around with no real purpose or point.
When you look at it this way, it is no wonder that people tend to romanticize hell.
Hell would be the opposite of heaven, pain and sorrow, suffering and sickness. In all, it would be the absence of the love of God – nothing but cold contempt and suffering.
I suppose that is the problem. If you do not love God now, you really can’t imagine spending an eternity with him.
But with him, death is empty. As a friend of mine said one time, when I threatened (jokingly, of course) to kill him, “Go ahead. Threaten me with heaven,”
That kind of takes the sting out of the threat. Death has no sting, death has no victory when you are in Jesus.
When Jesus died and rose again, he gave new meaning to life. As long as we are in him, we do not have to be afraid of what might happen when we die. He gives hope.
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