 did I give you one of my cards?
I usually only give these cards out to people who have taken time to dialogue with me a little about what happens after death. But I also sometimes give them to people who take an interest in my tattoo.
You may have wondered why there is such a "morbid" Bible verse on the front of my card. That verse became very important to me when I was a teenager watching my little brother die of leukemia. The full verse says:
"It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart."
~ Ecclesiastes 7:2
The reason the Bible says it's a good thing for us to think deeply about death is that there is nothing else in this universe that distills everything like death -- especially the death of a loved one. When we realize our own mortality, the things that really matter are brought into focus, while everything else recedes.
You don't know the day and hour you're going to have to face God... and neither do I--but that doesn't change the fact that we will.
God says, "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment," Hebrews 9:27.
 Time is so fleeting. Neither one of us (you, who are reading this right now, or me) may have even an hour of life left. I may have said to you, when we spoke, that every 15 minutes someone dies in a car accident--when people climb into their cars, they may be climbing into their own coffins.
Believe me, no one living in Japan woke up on the morning of March 11, 2011 saying to themselves, "Well, I only have a few more hours to live. I'm going to die this afternoon in a tsunami caused by the largest earthquake in recorded Japanese history. I'd better take some time this morning to make sure I've made peace with God..." No one who worked in the World Trade Center woke up on the morning of 9/11/2001 saying, "Well, I'd better enjoy this cup of coffee because it's the last one I'll ever drink. My place of work is going to be turned into a towering inferno and I'm going to leap to my death out of a window rather than be burned alive. I'd better make sure I know where my soul is going after I die."
What is the point of all this? The point is that the time you have--right at this moment--is a gift.
 As long as you are still drawing breath into your lungs, God is having mercy on you. Everyone dies, it's the ultimate statistic. But whether it happens today, or 10 years from now... whether it happens dramatically, or quietly... whether it happens along with hundreds of other people, or whether you die alone... one way or another, it it's going to happen. And that is when you will face God.
If you have any fear right now, don't waste it. At some time in your life you may have been told you should never fear God... Or you may picture God in your mind as a kindly, grandfatherly figure. But Jesus tells us we should "fear" God, who can, and will, throw guilty criminals (like us) into Hell, (hover your mouse over this verse and read it: Luke 12:5).
So, if you are blessed right at this moment to be filled with fear of facing a Holy God while you are still in your sins, then thank God for that! And take time to either thoughtfully read through this page on my website, or go to needGod.com and take the test provided there. Don't waste this moment. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, (Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 1:7, 9:10).
May the Lord bless you by opening your heart (Acts 16:14) to receive the AMAZING grace He offers you in the legal transaction that Jesus, the God-man, made with His own blood on the cross. (Hover your mouse over these verses and get a glimpse of what He did for you: Romans 5:6-11.)
Please visit needGod.com.
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