Tag: Death

Declining to Our Physical Departure

Aging can bring physical decline and loss, leading to a struggle with self-identity and health. Yet, faith in God provides hope. Through Jesus Christ, believers can embrace eternal life beyond death. This perspective encourages acceptance of life’s purposes, focusing on the glory promised in Heaven, making the aging process less daunting.

Nobody likes aging. It doesn’t hit you that this is your problem until usually your 30’s (a little) and with every decade that passes it gets worse. When our physical decline results in actual loss, we struggle to cope. It seems that suddenly we cannot eat like we used to without consequence. We used to be so attractive and now we are attractive “for our age”, which is often the same as not attractive. Eventually we cannot run without pain. We forget stuff. We can’t sleep or we sleep all the time. We are no longer competent to drive. We are no longer safe to live independently. It is a dark decline.

I would like to give you a little perspective that I hope helps. We are created to be eternal creatures. Our bodies age, decline and die; but that is because of “sin”. I’m not saying that we would necessarily live longer or healthier if we behaved better. I am saying that we are all genetically altered from the way God originally created human beings. The result is that our current bodies must die. This would create a hopeless situation for us if not for the fact that God wants us to have eternal life with Him, and has done something about it.

Jesus Christ is God’s Son who became human for a very specific purpose. He kept God’s Law perfectly, which is what God requires for people who would be with Him eternally. He also absorbed the worst consequence of sin on the cross. He was forsaken by His father, which would be our fate. Now we can be “connected” to Jesus through God creating faith in us and Jesus “baptizing us into His death”. That phrase means that God creates some sort of “supernatural” connection to us where Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death are ours. When we are “in Christ” the only thing left for us to do is to go through physical death. The rest of the way to a glorious, happy, eternal existence has been given as a gift from Jesus.

With that as a backdrop, declining toward death shouldn’t have to be so bad. Yes, it still hurts. Yes, you feel loss. But you are heading toward something great. This impacts certain decisions and attitudes.

First, if you are facing any challenge, especially a medical challenge, you can tell yourself that it is only temporary and if it ends in death, you will actually gain from it.

You don’t have to insist that the medical community do everything possible to keep you alive. Your goal is to naturally die. Their efforts would probably only give you an extended painful, useless, modest extension on this life. You don’t even want that.

Rather than be always looking back at the “good old days”, you can be forward thinking toward the glory of what God has prepared for you in Heaven and ultimately also a New Earth.

You can understand your purpose in life as something that is dynamic but always God-given. When you retire, you move from one purpose to another that is God-given. As you lose independence, you may lose one purpose but acquire another. Life is for accomplishing whatever God has prepared for you and then you get to experience real life.

This is hard to embrace, but when you study what God has promised us you develop a genuine excitement for it. That is what this blog is all about. My life matters, my aging and decline matters, and my passing away matters. I am heading toward an increasing glory.

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1 (ESV)

Embracing Your Continuous Existence

The author reflects on existence, beginning with personal memories and the concept of eternal life. They emphasize that, while physically dying is inevitable, individuals continue to exist. The blog urges readers to develop a perspective beyond death, fostering certainty about salvation and understanding their eternal nature amidst life’s challenges and aging.

If it were based on my memory (and it shouldn’t be), I didn’t begin to exist until 1967 when I magically appeared in kindergarten. I have some memories of pre-school years, but I think they are false memories created more by pictures than direct memory. I fully trust those who swear I was born in April of 1962, as much as I would like to deny it. I also trust both Scripture and science that tells me I began to exist 9 months before that. Before the date of my conception no element of me existed anywhere, unless you count the foreknowledge of God.

I have now been a pastor for 33+ years. I have done many, many funerals. Of the deceased that I could still see, they all looked pretty finished. It could be easily construed that the person that I knew was now non-existent. But Scripture, an internal sense that I am more than an animated body, and even the Near-Death Experiences (NDE) of others tell me that we are now eternal. You can and need to physically die, but you will continue to exist in another body in another place (Heaven or Sheol). That is what this blog has mainly been about since 2016.

In this article I would like you to think about two aspects of your existence: the beginning and the approach to your physical death.

We don’t have a lot of information about our beginning. Science tells us that when we were a fertilized egg that we already had a unique, human genetic structure. The Bible tells us that our genetics were not like the information God created in us. They were altered by what is known as our sinful nature. As a corrupted being we were already disqualified from eternal life with God. We were sinful not potentially sinful. (Psalm 51:5)

Did we have a spirit at that time? The Bible doesn’t inform us, but it seems like a fair inference that the advent of the body is accompanied by the advent of the spirit. Technically the term “soul” refers to the interaction of spirit and body. See more here:https://afterdeathsite.com/2024/03/26/your-body-soul-and-spirit/ If that is the case, many complete and eternal humans never live independently on this fallen Earth. They die naturally or are aborted before birth. We know nothing for certain about their fate, other than they continue to exist. We would like to think that God saves them all, but with the fact that we are sinful from conception, I can’t definitively say that.

At that time, we were so fragile and yet indestructible. We began to exist and will continue to exist. I have a second cousin who had an epileptic seizure while driving a big rig. He arrived at the ER DOA (Dead on arrival), or so the story goes. Doctors revived him, but he had an NDE. In his experience he met a person who identified himself as his “brother”. His impression was this meant his physical brother, but he knew of no brother that was deceased. When he told this story to his mom, she confirmed that she gave birth to a stillborn male child. They exist.

This is the real issue with abortion. A woman with an unplanned pregnancy has much on the line. Her rights to her own body and healthcare are only second to one thing: the right to live of another person. I guess it wouldn’t be that much of an issue if we could know that all unborn deaths resulted in a free pass to Heaven. Sinful Earth is highly overrated. But as a society we can’t even agree to what we are: just a smart animal, a being with a spirit that reincarnates, an eternal being or something else. Government should defend the life of all humans. That is how it is involved.

The weight of evidence is behind the idea that we are eternal beings. That said, we struggle to embrace this fact fully. It remains surreal because of our weak faith in God’s word and our dependence on experience to determine reality. Without an NDE, death seems like an impenetrable dark wall. We don’t even imagine beyond it. God exhorts us to think beyond death.

18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (ESV)

The goal of this blog is to help you do this.

As you daily move closer to your physical death, even when you are young, you need to develop a horizon of thought that goes beyond your death. It is very possible to be certain of your salvation because it is based on Jesus’ work and God’s grace to you. It is possible to move toward death with such certainty of what comes next that you are not afraid and even eager. This does not discount that value of your current life. Rather it clarifies it. You are here to complete God’s plan for you. (Ephesians 2:10)

With clarity about your eternal nature, you can even cope with aging and illness well. Illness is a part of the curse for all–including Christians. Our bodies need to eventually break down to the point that we can separate from them. We will have a Heavenly body (2 Corinthians 5:1) and eventually also a massively upgraded Earthly body (1 Corinthians 15:50-54). Aging stinks. I hate it. Falling ill is worse. But I don’t want to be stuck here permanently. I am willing to stick out the whole 120-year maximum lifespan if it means fruitful work for the Kingdom of God for me. That said, you don’t have to cling to life like it is all there is. You are eternal.

The Way That We Are Made

What makes a human being special, if anything? A Materialist would say that nothing is special. We are just a biological robot doing what chemistry is forcing us to do with no specific purpose. Materialism is a very disparaging philosophy that doesn’t fit our experience. I don’t believe it at all. I experience myself making choices, contemplating my existence, living with purpose; and even though I have not died and returned from the dead yet, I have a sense that I am not limited to my physical lifespan. That may lack scientific vigor, but the atheistic claims of a Materialist do as well, and are clearly rubbish.

Human beings are more than interesting chemistry. Complex chemistry is a part of our being, but not the whole of it. Most people have thought so. The dissenters have a clear bias–they don’t want God to exist.

The Bible says something different about humans. It says we were created in the “image of God”. What does that mean? I don’t think it is the common meaning of the term “image”. The Bible declares several times that God is a spirit or is spirit. While the meaning of “spirit” is also vague, I would gather from usage that it means that God is not set in his appearance by a defined physical form. Part of being created in the “image of God” is having a part of our being not connected to a defined physical form.

Our bodies are a “defined physical form” the way I am using the phrase. The Bible speaks of humans as also having a “spirit”. Our spirit may be what we experience as consciousness. But our spirit is not the whole of us. We are body, and possibly bodies, and spirit. Our spirit can be liberated from connection to our body. That is what death is. Our spirit can interact with our body. That is why we can control it and that is what is observed when mapping brain activity.

We know that our earthly body can die and decay. Our spirit cannot, which is another aspect of being made in the image of God. We are eternal. While I do not believe in reincarnation, I understand the Bible to say that we can have a heavenly body (1 Corinthians 15:40, 2 Corinthians 5:1). In that case, our spirit is interacting with a body made for the physical dimensions of Heaven. I also know from the Bible that we will have a “resurrected” body. In this case, our spirit is interacting with a recreated, indestructible body built for the physical dimensions of this universe. Being eternal, we will never lapse into non-existence.

Being created in the image of God means, among still other things, that we have an eternal, non-material part that can interact with material bodies that can exist within their respective physical realms. This is theorizing that Heaven is a parallel universe to this universe rather than a remote part of it. The same can be said for Hell. How we will spend eternity depends on our relationship with God.

Humans were not created by God to be in an antagonistic or forsaken relationship to Him. We were created for Him, to be with Him. But that relationship was broken a long time ago. When we come into being at our conception, we do not arrive with a good relationship and with an unblemished image of God. God creates us, but in the sense that He created the biological system of reproduction that makes us. We do not start from scratch. As such, we inherit physically a nature that is antagonistic to God and under God’s judgment. (Romans 7, Psalm 51:5 et al). The only fix for us is Jesus. Jesus’ actions created the opportunity to repair our relationship with God. God seeks us out to connect us to Jesus; and, if successful, to restore us to what we were originally intended to be.

Would we know this without being told about it by God? I doubt it. We would only experience a vague sense of something amiss. We would see a troubled and often ugly world made painful by human actions. We would walk blindly into our own deaths, perhaps expecting the end of our existence. Finding instead a far worse continued existence.

Created in the image of God is what we are for better or worse. Thank God, He did not abandon us to a hopeless fate.

The Folly of Flying Blind

Imagine that you are an airplane pilot and that you need to land your plane. Only today there is a low cloud blank over the airport. You cannot see where you are going. Luckily, modern instrumentation can tell you your location and altitude and speed. You can land blind if you rely on your instrumentation. Imagine if it wasn’t working.

With a large degree of certainty, you know that the ground is somewhere below you. Just go for it, right? Landing a plane is not an activity without high stakes. Hitting the ground in the wrong way in the wrong place has serious consequences.

Many people approach death this way. With a high degree of certainty they will die. Still, they approach death as if nothing can go wrong. Ignoring the topic, living in denial at least makes them happy for the moment. But death is an experience where you would prefer not to have a crash landing. Information is critical.

We can assume that every outcome is positive. People like that. But that is hardly proof that every outcome is positive. You can dismiss all evidence and revelation as unreliable. You can hedge your bets by being a “moral” person. You can convince yourself that there is nothing to be known about what comes next, and just “land the plane”, but that is folly.

Since we will all die, we should all be hungry for information about what, if anything, happens to us next. Don’t be quickly convinced that we simply cease to exist. The methods of materialistic inquiry may not serve you well in this instance. Reported near death experiences and revelations about God, Heaven, Hell or reincarnation all have to be carefully weighed as to their reliability. While you can’t arrive at an absolutely conclusive experiment or definitive experience, I believe that God can give you the certainty and clarity that you need.

Only God can give us the information we seek and confidence to trust it. The experiences of others may give some corroboration. For me, the weight of the information points to a judgment of each of us at death; and it is a judgment that we will fair poorly in without forgiveness from God.

The good news is that God is a being eager to forgive and eager to bless people with an existence after death that far exceeds in both length and quality what we are experiencing now. That eagerness manifested itself in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ life and death were part of a plan that provided a way for God to fulfill His laws and still forgive the sins of people. A connection to Jesus is a critical and necessary part of landing safely.

The objective of this blog has been to give you information about what the Bible says exists beyond this life. It is a more complicated scenario than most people realize. The complexity is caused because humans decided to rebel against God. Without the original sin of Adam and Eve, we would simply live forever in a world with no problems, new adventure and direct interaction with God. That is the end that God still desires for us. Jesus makes it possible.

Why Believe In Eternal Life?

You go to a funeral or visitation and there lies the body of a person you know. There is no movement, no sign of life. None of your senses tell you that this person still exists. There is just observable death and with it grief. Perhaps you want to believe that they are “in a better place”, but it could be just wishful thinking that we desperately need at this moment.

In another instance, you are sitting with a person in the process of dying. They seem to be having a vision. “I see Grandpa!” “The angels are coming for me!” ” I see Jesus!” You, of course, don’t see any of this. Is it real or is this just the expected delusions created by a dying brain? The same might be asked about people who have more terrifying visions. “I see fire!” “Help me!”

The sensory experience or even instrumental readings available at the time of death, all carry with them a large degree of doubt. Short of being able to freely move back and forth from this life to the next, all accounts are questionable. While I would put some weight behind the testimony of those who have had Near Death Experiences, I would consider our ability to measure or experience life after death to severely limited. Maybe someday we will have an instrument that can peer beyond death, but the current scientific orthodoxy has already decided that such a thing doesn’t exist.

That leaves us with two further means of information: one I can endorse and one I cannot. God can give to people the truth of what lies beyond the grave, if He so desires. And to a limited extend, that is exactly what He has done. When you are unequipped to investigate on your own, you are dependent on revelation. The other is a type of stolen revelation. Dabbling in the occult is tapping into the knowledge and power of other beings, evil beings, that can span the gap of death. God strictly forbids it. Why? He knows them to be prolific liars and deceivers. He knows them to hate our species, but that hasn’t kept people away.

The people of Israel were strictly warned against this type of inquiry. The people who occupied Canaan where deeply into these practices along with other disgusting forms of worship. For these reasons, they were being dispossessed of the land.

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.”

Deuteronomy 18:9-14

Such practices and the desperate demand for such contact has also created a cadre of con-men and women who prey on sorrow. It leads many people to doubt that such capabilities even exist. But God was not warning about hucksters.

Revelation from Jesus, who is God incarnate, is our most trustworthy source of information. Others sources provide modest, secondary affirmation. Jesus promised to be straight with us.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

John 14:1-2

If we were limited to just this life, then Jesus would have said so. There was no motive to lie. But Jesus’ whole mission was to prepare a place for us. It already had been determined and revealed that people would face a Judgment Day and experience a resurrection from the dead. Jesus was preparing a further place and a better resurrection. He was going to become the way to have Heaven as a destination at death, and a New Heaven and New Earth as a home after the resurrection.

Jesus proved his reliability on such grand promises to his contemporaries by raising people from the dead, three in all; and then rising from the dead himself. Do you have someone with better credentials?

It is true that there is nothing like experience. I can guarantee that you will get you chance at that. But listening to the revelation that God has given us is more than just interesting information. It is critical and relevant to all. It is information intended for you and truthful. It prepares you for death and guides you in life. It can make you certain of things you cannot see or measure.

Prepared for Your Death

You are in good health. Maybe you are even young. Why should you think about death? The obvious answer is that all you have to be is alive in order to die. There is no particular age or way that it comes, and you are not guaranteed that you will grow old before death. But there is a better answer for why you should consider your own mortality. That is because living like you will die someday (and you will), will cause you to truly consider the purpose of life and help you to live fully and wisely.

If it were a fact that we just die and cease to exist, then truly life would be without purpose. In that case do whatever you want and can get away with. But that is not the case. Both the Bible and Near Death Experiences around the world confirm that we go on. The Bible also confirms that life has a purpose and it is a purpose often neglected by people.

When you don’t consider your mortality, or more accurately your immortality, you tend to do mostly what pleases you. Your life is measured by the number and quality of your experiences or the accumulation of your wealth. There is a bumper sticker that reflects this default philosophy, it says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” If that is on your car, you may want to scape it off before I see it. I will mock you.

Wealth simply passes through our fingers. We enjoy it only temporarily. Life isn’t a contest either. You don’t win anything for being the richest or having many toys. Some of the richest people in history have even concluded that dying with massive wealth was a source of shame and not honor. It certainly hasn’t done much for family dynamics as people quarrel over the estate.

Legacy is a concern of those who truly doubt the reality of eternal life. To be remembered well isn’t a bad thing, it is just not something that will enhance your existence. It is like having a great looking monument on your grave. Others will see it and not care. You won’t see it at all.

The most important quality of both life and death is to right with your Maker. Running a course independent of that chosen by God may feel like freedom but it is actually slavery to our inherent evil. If our death deposits us into the judgment of a Being we have denied and rebelled against, then nothing else matters. We are doomed. If on the other hand, we move from a life that has always been tainted into the arms of a Being that loves us and has compensated for our inherent evil, then that is the most fundamentally important thing in life. The meaning of life is connected to whatever comes next.

The good news is that God does favor the human race. We aggravate Him. We provoke Him. We do our best to write Him out of history. But God is a different kind of being. When He has decided to love someone or something, then He loves them regardless of their response. Despite ourselves, God has enacted a plan that puts a joyful, fun, social and unblemished life after death in our laps. He just has to get through our tough defenses to make it a reality for us personally. A connection to Jesus is the most valuable and indispensable asset we can have, and it is a gift that God is trying to give.

If you have a faith in Jesus as a Savior who has given Himself to die for your sins, then God has done it. He has broken through to you. Every other preparation for death is small by comparison, but there are more. The upcoming blogs will talk about how life impacts afterlife when you are connected to Jesus through faith and baptism. I hope you are curious enough to read them.

Respecting the Danger

Imagine this.  It is a beautiful night for a walk in your neighborhood.  It is dark, but in your experience your neighborhood is a safe place for an evening stroll.  But tonight, this is not the case.  Danger is waiting for you.  Would you rather know about the danger or would you prefer to believe what you want to be true is true?

It should be self-evident that if there are a bunch of villanous thugs, or rabid dogs, or a giant sinkhole that is now part of the neighborhood, we would want to know about it.  Danger is bad, but danger we are unprepared for is the worst.  Still, many people approach death with such a wishful and ignorant attitude.  We must take the walk of death someday, but we don’t want to think about it or even hear what could await us.  As a result, many will pass through death expecting something heavenly, or to be non-existent, or to reincarnate; and that won’t happen for them.  It doesn’t matter what you believe, it is what exists.

My point is that it makes sense to think about and study claims about death, because we definitely will do it, and it will prove to be the most important thing in our existence.  I am not saying I expect all to believe the Bible on this topic.  But beware of the bias caused by what you want to be true.  The Bible actually puts forward something that I definitely don’t want to be true.  Jesus says,

Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

I would love to deny that this is true.  But I do feel that the Bible, especially Jesus, has credibility.  This comes not only from historical and archeological evidence, but also from reason and, in the end, from the Spirit of God.  This is the giant pothole in the neighborhood.  So I definitely want to be a part of the “few” and I want you to be a part of the few as well, even if I never met you.

This narrow road is Jesus.  Oddly, God would rather this not be the fact either.  God loves people, but people willfully became sinful and this matters.  God is also a being who lives by His Law.  He doesn’t compromise it.  Jesus’ incarnation, life, death and resurrection create a path by which God can both save and fulfill the requirement of the Law.  It’s the only path.

If you don’t believe this yet or don’t understand it, please fully investigate it.  Ask God for help.  Even if you are not sure there is such a being. Understanding death, what comes after it and why, is an existence defining body of knowledge.  It deserves our time and effort. Not only will we avoid a bottomless sinkhole, we will have a redefined life and death will be but the beginning of the best part of our experience.