"The End"

Most people generally don't like to think about what will happen after they die. I know people in the insurance industry who find that one of the hardest things to do is bring up the topic of life insurance with people. Some people are simply too pre-occupied with life, but most want to sweep the topic of death under the rug and avoid dealing with it for as long as possible. People tend to do this with things that are too mysterious or especially that they lack control over. They get scared if they think about the idea of their own death too much, so their typical defense mechanism is to ignore it altogether.

But there is a great danger in ignoring this reality. While they're alive, people risk their loved ones suffering hardship if they fear death to the point of not getting a will made up or setting up a life insurance policy. But the Bible speaks of a far greater tragedy if the reality of death is not addressed on this side of eternity. And even those who do take care of things like life insurance aren't really better off if they don't come to God to set up what I like to call their "death insurance" policy.

So what about you? When the credits in the story of your life roll to a close and the words "The End" appear, what will be your fate? Will it be what the atheists assume (with nothing to back it up), and you'll no longer exist in body and soul? Will you just extinguish? If so, then all your pursuits for pleasure and wealth are all in vain. They have no meaning whatsoever. You'll just live it up in this life, die and be extinguished forever, and therefore have no memory or enjoyment of all you strived to be and to do. What good was it that you enjoyed pleasures apart from God if you won't remember them? What a great thing to look forward to (not)! And to think that people consider Christians weird because they place their hope in a future beyond this life.

So what is this future that Christians have their hope in? Well, the Christian who wastes this side of eternity consumed with chasing pleasure and wealth will also be disappointed by not being able to enjoy any of these things or take them into eternity. However, they will still be ushered into an eternal existence with God because they had asked for Jesus to forgive and cleanse them at some point during their earthly existence, when they were in the right frame of mind and not chasing after the wind.

Did you get that? The Bible makes it clear that a decision to accept the forgiveness of Jesus must be made while a person is still alive on this earth. Doing it while face-to-face with Jesus would be a no-brainer. Therefore, God requires us to have faith, to trust in what is unseen on earth before it is seen after our body dies. And by the way, even the most hard-core atheist or devil-worshipper will be meeting Jesus face-to-face after they die physically to give an account of their lives to Him. (I wonder what they'll say once they meet the very One who created them yet denied the existence of?) The Bible even states "every knee should bow ... and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10). Some translations replace the word "should" with "shall". Also notice the emphasis on the word every (as the atheist and non-Christian squirm ...).

Some non-believers might have the mindset that this won't happen if they choose not to believe in what the Bible says about life after death. The might be like me who, while I was making every effort to reject God in my life, had the self-conceived notion that people will experience life-after-death according to what god or system (or lack thereof) they believe in. So, for example, I thought that the atheist would be granted their belief of non-existence after death, and the Muslim or Jew or Christian their idea of eternal life after death. In other words, I had the fool-brained notion that our thoughts would somehow have the power to dictate our reality after death. As for my reality, I didn't know where I would go because I didn't want to think about it. I was too scared of the idea of my own death and trying desperately to enjoy my life apart from God, so I chose to ignore it.

But I'll say the same thing I've said in a previous post and which I'll repeat in future ones: you can deny, refute, and ignore the Bible all you want, but what if you're wrong? What if the Bible is for real, and what if everyone does end up in eternity, either heaven or hell depending on whether or not they accept the free gift of salvation that Jesus offers while still alive here on earth? Can you afford to be wrong?

Because "The End" isn't really the end after all. The Bible makes it clear that we live on in spirit after our body dies. The person who chose to get right with God and get their "death insurance" policy while still alive on this earth will live an eternity in His presence free from the pain and frustrations of the existence they had on earth. But the person who chose to ignore God and the reality of death will live an eternity separated from His presence - away from His acts of kindness that He showed to them on earth, shown so that they would come to Him. That person will instead be at the mercy of Satan and all his angels ("demons") - along with all people who rejected God - in a place of eternal torment and regret that the Bible calls "hell". A place where no good and all bad occurs, all the time and forever.

By the way, whoever has the idea that they'll get to see their friends and relatives in hell has no basis for this assumption. You can bet that God's enemies will all be working together to ensure that every other soul there with them will not be able to have any of the good that they've been denied.

So what will your end be? Actually, the choice is up to you, not God. God doesn't send people to hell, but we choose whether we go there or not. God has given us this power of choice because he wants our obedience to Him to be chosen and not forced. Now if that's not love, then I don't know what is!

Again, our end depends upon whether we want to accept God's forgiveness through Jesus or not. I sincerely hope that any non-believer reading this will make the right choice.