Death Is Not the End
And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. - (1 John 2:17)
Commentator E. M Bounds wrote, “Heaven ought to so fill our hearts and hands, our manner and conversation, our character and our features, that all would see that we are foreigners. . . . Heaven is our native land and home to us, and death to us is not the dying hour, but the birth hour.”
Life is passing by quickly, and we know that we will see our loved ones in the Lord again. The absence away from our loved ones is a comma, not a period. Earth is a temporary place where we decide our eternal destiny. One day Jesus Christ will call all believers to Heaven, either through the Rapture or through death.
Heaven is our real home, and we should be motivated by the hope that we will be in Heaven. As Warren Wiersbe said, “For the Christian, heaven isn’t simply a destination; it’s a motivation.”
The Bible gives us this reminder in 1 John 2: “Do not love this world. . . . For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever” (verses 15–17 nlt).
But what about people who, through no fault of their own, were not able to do all they had hoped to do because they were hampered by a disability or illness? Or what about those whose lives were shorter than what they had hoped? God will not waste or squander any life or gifts.
Death, for the believer, is not the end of life but the continuation of it in another place.
Copyright © 2017 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
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