Encounters with Death

Are you living for this world...or the next one?

When you’ve had an encounter with death—a near-death experience of your own or the sudden passing of a loved one—it inevitably leads to a few essential questions. My family and I experienced this back in 2008, when our 33-year-old Christopher died suddenly in a traffic accident.

Anyone who goes through something like this starts asking a few questions:

What is life all about, anyway?
Why am I alive?
What am I really living for?

In other words, what gets you out of bed in the morning? What gets your blood pumping? Is it an alarm clock or a calling that gets you up each and every day? Every one of us needs some motivating passion, some ideal, something that gives our lives purpose, that drives us on. Unfortunately, some people don’t know what they’re living for. 

Many people are merely enduring instead of enjoying their lives. Their favorite day of the week is “someday.” Someday my ship will come in. Someday my prince will come. Someday it will get better. Someday my life will change. I once came across a poll in which 94 percent of the people surveyed were simply enduring the present, while waiting for “something better” to happen. 

But there’s one thing people don’t plan on: They don’t plan on death.

And then never expect it to come around the corner unexpectedly. 

Thinking of the Next World

Now when you’re getting along in years as I am, death is at least in the back of your mind. You know that you have fewer years to live than you’ve lived already, and that death waits at the end—whenever that may be. But many younger people think they’re invincible. Death happens to “other people.” Cancer and heart attacks and fatal accidents happen to “someone else.” 

When you’re young, you tell yourself, “I don’t have to even think about that for another 50 or 60 years.” And that may true. But death knocks at every door. The Bible says that each of us have an appointment with death: “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

Statisticians tell us that three people die every second, 180 every minute, and 11,000 every hour. That means that every day, 250,000 people enter into eternity. The psalmists write about this:

“Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should…”—Psalm 90:12, The Living Bible

“You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.”—Psalm 39:5, NLT

The truth is, only those who are prepared to die are really ready to live. 

In a dungeon in Rome, facing imminent execution, the apostle Paul wrote:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”—Philippians 1:21-24, NIV

I love his statement, “For to me, to live is Christ.” 

But not everyone will love those words. Some will think a person who says, “To live is Christ” is nuts. They’ll think, “This is a guy who’s got his head in the clouds. He’s a few clowns short of a circus!”

Or maybe, “This is a woman who’s so heavenly minded she’s no earthly good.” 

But that’s not true. Far from it! Those who think of the next world do the most for this one. My concern is for people who are so earthly minded they’re no heavenly good! 

Hints of Heaven

The apostle Paul loved life. And the simple fact is, no one loves life more than the Christian. We can enjoy it because we know it comes to us from the hand of a loving God. That beautiful sunset…that’s the signature of my Father who happens to be the Creator of all. That wonderful meal…the joy of love and marriage…the comfort of family and friends…the satisfaction of a hard day’s work. All of these are beautiful gifts from the hand of our Father.

But as blessed as we may be in this life, there is more…more than what we are experiencing on this earth. All the great things we do experience are just hints of heaven, of something better that will come for the man or the woman who has put faith in Jesus Christ.

In his book, The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis made this statement: “All the things that ever deeply possessed your soul have been hints of heaven. Tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.” He went on to write, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is I was made for another world.” 

Lewis concluded: “Earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy, but to arouse, to suggest the real thing.”

There is another place, another time, another life. And life on earth, be it nine years or 90 years, is a nanosecond compared to eternity. Even so, it is here on this earth where we will decide where we will spend eternity. It is here on this planet that you decide between heaven and hell. 

I am a dying man speaking to dying men, and I’m saying that eternity is real. And you get to decide where you will spend it.

Keep the Faith and Finish the Course

Here is what I can say to you. Take the worst-case scenario of life: finding out that a loved one—maybe even your child—has been suddenly taken from this life. My family and I lived that experience, and I can say this. God was there. I hit bottom, and found it to be sound. God is there. His Word is true. You don’t have to be afraid; God will be with you no matter what you face in your life. 

What do you live for? Be honest now. If your answer is, “For me to live is money,” then to die is to leave it all behind.

If you say, “For me to live is fame,” then to die is to be forgotten.

If you say, “For me to live is power,” then for you to die will be utter weakness.

But if you say, “For me to live is Christ” then you will also be able to say, “To die is gain.” 

To close, here’s a short video I made about what it means to live for eternity—to live a life that’s ready for the Lord’s return.