The following post was written by my friend, Paul Tessari, who serves as Associate Pastor here at First Baptist Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts.
In the New Testament, James writes,
Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do no know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
This truth was brought home to me at the death of my friend Greg Hudson this last week. The bible often speaks of our life in these terms. At every point it conveys the brevity of life and the importance of living it in light of this fact. The reality is, at some point, we all go on to meet our creator. Yet, though we do not admit it, we suppress this hard truth when it comes to our own life. There is something within us that refuses to believe it and so, for the most part, we live our lives thinking we will live forever. “Such things cannot happen to me,” we think. It is only when a tragedy such as Greg’s occurs that we are forced to deal with our own mortality and that the veil of self denial is removed and we see ourselves in the same light as Scripture—a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
It is at this very moment that we should ask ourselves, Where will I spend eternity? What hope is there in death for me? We must ask them before the shadow of self denial once again descends upon our eyes. They are tough questions to ask, but questions we need to ask—and answer—before that fateful day happens. Hebrews, 9:27 tells us, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes the judgment.” There are no second chances, no “do over’s.” Today is the day of salvation and now is the acceptable time (2 Cor. 6:2). Scripture tells us that our only hope of eternal life with the Lord is through His Son Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter said this in Acts 4:10:
He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone. And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which you must be saved.
Jesus Himself stated:
I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
- 1 Thess. 4:13-18
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
Do you have this hope? Do you have this assurance? You can. Take this time now, while your heart is still tender to the sadness of the hour and come to Jesus Christ. Greg did, and I know that he would want you to as well.