Have Your Prepared for the Inevitable?

In our everyday lives we make preparations for many things. Those who work prepare for important meetings, students prepare for examinations, a lot of people are right now preparing for their date on Valentine's Day. But sometimes even though we make so much preparations, things don't go as we expect them to. The business meeting we prepared for gets canceled, the exam topics gets changed and the Valentine date backs out.

This past week, I was reminded of something inevitable that comes but a lot of people don't get to prepare for - death and what comes after that. This struck hard on me when one of the attenders in our youth ministry died last January 31 because of a condition called cardiomyopathy. What's shocking is that he died at the age of 16. He was a nice boy, loved his family and was a responsible older brother to his five siblings.

Then came the reminder that death is inevitable and it comes unexpectedly. The question is are we ready to die?

The Bible says that death came to all men through the first man's disobedience. Sin came when Adam disobeyed God and death through sin (Romans 5:12) . Romans 6:23 adds that our being born as sinners (not because we do wrong things but because of our sin nature) separates us from God and has a natural consequence - physical and spiritual death which is eternal separation from God.

The good news is that even though we're all destined for that eternal separation, God made a way for us to escape that. That way is not a religion but a relationship - in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Since we're all sinners, nothing we could do could ever pass as an acceptable sacrifice for sin. Romans 3:23 describes how we all fall short of God's holiness. So, God, knowing this, sent Jesus and He lived as a God-man, experienced what we all experienced (emotions & temptations) but didn't sin. He then became THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS. His death, the shedding of His blood on the Cross became the payment for our sin and His resurrection demonstrated His power over sin and death - so that when God promises eternal life, he is promising it with the guarantee that He's 'been there, done that'.

So how does this all relate to preparing for death? Only when we individually...

A - Admit we are sinners and that we can't work our way to God and...

B - Believe that Jesus is God's only provision for our sin problem and...

C - Commit our life to Jesus, by making a personal decision that from now on He will be the Boss and Manager (Lord) our lives...

...only then can we be really prepared for death. As John 3:16-18 declares, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."

Further more , John 1:12 says that , "to all who received Him (Jesus), to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. We begin our new relationship with God; He becomes our Father and us His children.

Anyone can make this decision by verbalizing to God the simple steps (A-B-C) above, even right now.

If you made that decision right now I'd be glad to know and even help you grow in the new relationship you have with God.