Sometimes we can lose peace by asking questions that are bigger than ourselves. The subject of death has always been a sensitive topic to me and many others can relate. To care for someone while they’re here on this earth, living in what was once said “a pit stop to eternity,” and to see them transition from this life into the next, can be a very heartbreaking experience. No one wants to see their loved ones move on into glory. The very idea of it brings an instant feeling of sorrow, grief, and pain. However, there is a time and season for everything under heaven, and a time to experience death is one of them.

 

Even as I write this, I can feel the knot in my throat and tears that desire to flow because I use to struggle with the idea of losing my loved ones since I was a child. I would have vivid dreams of them dying and attending their funerals and then wake up and run into my parent’s room crying because of the things that I had seen. I didn’t know how to deal with those experiences and the fear of those images actually coming to past caused me to want to distance myself from them and people in general. Not trying to deeply connect because once I did, it was bound to end in the painful loss of someone I held dear. Although this was a struggle for me, God’s truth had to be applied in the midst of my life experiences and the enemy’s attacks, to bring me to a place where peace could be found.

 

John 11:25-26 ESV states “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

 

I will ask the same question, do you believe this?

 

As Christians, we often pick and choose which parts of the bible we will believe in, while we’re supposed to consume and believe in all of it. We allow ourselves to be introduced to ideas outside of our faith causing a secular mindset to be accepted. This disconnection with God’s truth then allows us to ask so many questions throughout of lives and the following is among them. Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? Are we reincarnated? When we die is the thing that awaits us absolute nothingness?

There have been many questions asked but from a Christian standpoint we believe in both Heaven & Hell, Angel, and Demon, God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son and The Holy Spirit “The Helper”, that was promised to us after Christ ascended back to heaven. We believe in eternity, and we believe that we will see our loved ones again.

 

What does the Bible tell us about death?

 

James 4:13-15 ESV

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

• Our life is in the Lords’ hands. We can choose to live healthy lifestyles but the time and date of our departure are already set. We won’t be here in our earthly temples forever, it’s temporary. We will be transformed and be given heavenly bodies. (Even Paul says through scripture 1 Corinthians 15:51 NLT “But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed.” Another version says “not everyone will be asleep (dead) at the Lord’s return.” But truth be told, some of us will be gone before His return and we must begin to fully embrace God’s promise to us about life after death.)

 

Hebrews 4:9-11 NLT

“So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.”

 

• That there is a place prepared for us to take rest from the years of laboring on this earth. As believers, it’s a gift and promise from God for us to inherit through His son, Jesus. We will rest as God the Father rested.

 

Understanding the pathway from death to eternity can be hard and though we will mourn at the passing of our loved ones, we can also rejoice at their transition into eternal life. Death should not remove the joy of our salvation but in turn, be the proven trademark of our faith! Meaning that Jesus remains victorious over death, hell, and the grave and when we die, we share the same victory as Jesus did when He was raised again. Death did not hold Him, just like it won’t hold us.

 

*Don’t lose focus of your eternity, but choose to live in your eternity now….

 

We as Christian can’t allow the enemy to torment us about death. It’s either we believe in what the word of God says and remain confident in it or we choose to believe ideas that are not aligned with our faith.

 

Jesus said, “in this world, you will have tribulation but take heart I have overcome the world.”

 

We are to take joy in the fact that we will keep on living past our bodies expiration date. Yes, that was weird to say but the truth still remains that God allowed us to be on this earth for a set time, to try to anticipate when that day will come is tormenting. So don’t choose to die and grieve before your time. Instead, live your life to the fullest by glorifying God and having an intimate relationship with Him. Please Him by obeying and fearing Him, while loving yourself and others!

 

What I Do Know:

God would not want us to fear the unknown. We must not get lost in this world’s interpretation of death because it presents a limited view of what this extraordinary process entails. Our spirits are not buried in the ground or placed inside of tombs along with our bodies but our spirits live on. In order to regain our freedom we must make peace with God’s truth, and our core beliefs, accepting the full gospel for what it says, not for how the world tears it apart. We must not take on the mentality of unbelievers because when we do, it distances us from the Father and causes fear and even an emptiness to come forth.

 

We are not empty vessels wondering the world with no hope to satisfy our souls… we were bought with a price and the Holy Spirit dwells within us. So even in the face of fear we must remember that we exist because of God’s will for us to be here, and trust Him when He says it’s time to go. The whole earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, and He’s just blessed us with a piece of it. Our family, friends, possessions, memories it’s just a part of life but remember we look to the promise of eternity as our ultimate reward! Which is so much more fulfilling than anything this world can ever give.

 

The Bible says “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

Apostle Paul even states in Philippians 1:23-25 NLT “I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith.” This is a man who understood his call and served as long as God allowed him to. God’s will for his life superseded his own personal desires.

 

After reading his words, we all need to ask ourselves the following questions,

 

1). Have I lost my desire to be where the Lord is?

2). Am I desiring the things of this world more than the Him?

 

Matthew 10:37 NIV states “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” This might be difficult to hear but your father, mother, son or daughter should not become an idol to you, where you place them above God. The bible says, let nothing separate you from the love of God, which means not even the love for your own family should separate you from God’s love. Abraham had to lay his son Isaac on the altar… his promise…the evidence of the word of God manifested and brought into true form. He could not keep what belonged to God or even hold his son in higher regard but had to be willing to give him up. God, our Father had to do the same with His own son…. we must be aware of this concept in our own lives, to not place anything or anyone above God. It’s a hard truth, but truth nonetheless.

 

Death is the ultimate way of returning back to God but because we’ve spent an extensive amount of time with our loved ones, we don’t desire to ever leave them because their presence is all we know. Yet, we need to deeply understand that God is not a stranger, He is your Father, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who knows you inside and out, the one who has been with you every step of the way. From preconception to conception and will be with you even to your departure into eternity……He will never leave your side.

 

*With God Is Where You Wanna Be

 

So, Reclaim your victory here and now,

Reclaim your peace,

Reclaim the authority over your mind by preserving God’s truth and allowing it to set you free from the fear of death and take comfort in knowing that each day was designed for you to both enjoy your life’s journey and to be rejoined to your Heavenly Father once again. Let no one, not even yourself, steal that joy and peace from you. You are safe in Gods’ arms now and you will always be, even through death!

 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT

“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

 

“He has planted eternity in the human heart”

 

The seed of hope is already there but the pathway to receiving it is the real struggle.

 

I don’t know all of the pain in which you’re presently in, you may have lost a loved one and are grieving in a way that nobody can possibly understand or even see but the pain in which invades your peace is not meant to remain. It will come in waves, just like the ocean but just know that in between you will have breaks, where things will be still. In that stillness, I hope the words found in this post will remind you of God’s truth and infuse you with strength and hope.

 

Romans 8:18-23 NLT

“Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

 

Let your longing be for God,

Have peace within your mind,

Have peace in your faith stance.

Don’t fear the future and be misguided by other’s philosophies on death. Don’t lose hope or even the joy of your salvation but instead be enriched by the wealth of our faith. No matter what you face, allow the spirit of God to rest in your hearts and minds so much that nothing could shake you. Jesus died so we could be reconciled back to the Father, our natural death is just the final pathway to do just that!

 

God Bless You…Be Encouraged…and live your life with “Eager Hope”