Death and Wisdom!

Death has got a bad rep, and rightly so. It's a taboo subject, rarely discussed and even less thought of. Not many people think about their death. We always consider it to be a far distant event with no foreseeable date, and that in the meantime it will somehow skip us and go for others. The bible, however, tends to differ. It says it's wise to think of death according to Ecclesiastes 7:4. You could say when you know you have a definite amount of time to be on earth, then you can zero in and concentrate your efforts on things pertaining to the kingdom of God, such as winning souls for Christ. Furthermore, knowledge of your mortality can make you work on your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) because no one knows the day or the hour when the groom shall come and when He does, He better find your lamp on fire for Him. It's also the thought of death and its aftermath that prompted Jesus to die on the cross so that you shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

Profiting from Death?

There are many debates and uncertainty all through history, but there is no uncertainty with death. Statistically speaking, the probability of death is one. That means, like taxes, it has to happen, and thus we must talk about it and think about it in a business way, i.e., how can we profit from it rather than lose as it has always been the case? When we talk of profit, I don't mean materially, but rather spiritually. The first profiting is whether the soul was won for Christ and subsequently guarded against eternal damnation, for the bible says what does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul (Mark 8:36). I know it's hard looking at death any other way than a sad way, rightly so, but look at how Paul looked at it. Paul says for me to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). Similarly, Jesus had the same lenses when He said Lazarus' illness was not to lead to death but that rather to bring glory to God and that God's son may be glorified through it. So, death is only a sad topic and a loss when one dies without Christ.  


Preparation

So I challenge all of us believers, let's not see our loved ones perish without Christ. The bible says in Ezekiel 3:18 that God will require of us believers the blood of the wicked that died in their sins, and yet, we did not warn them to repent of their evil ways. At the same time, work on your salvation with fear and trembling so that death brings peace for yourselves and your loved ones and not loss. At a funeral, many questions come to light from our exposed mortality at that particular time. Perhaps questions like who is next? Why the deceased and not you or anyone else? As for me, I am mortified at the fact that all these answers are sealed from humanity. We are like sitting ducks who don't know when the butcher shall appear again and say umm I think I will have that one today (pointing). Scary, right? So for me, I guess it makes me want to get my house in order and have the proverbial ducks in a row. That's what God asked King Hezekiah to do when He was alerting him of his impending doom." Set your house in order, for you shall die and not recover.” (2 Kings 20:1). So while we are still breathing, let us be getting our houses in order by observing and accomplishing God's will for our lives, within and through the confines of the word. In short, do all that is prescribed in the word. Mary, mother of Jesus told the wedding staff in John 2:5 ," do what He instructs you to do.” Then we would have put our houses in order and would have profited when our hour to depart has come.