Anxiously Awaiting On Everything Eternal…

A fly buzzed…

After missing my promised Sunday Post for two Sundays in a row I figure it's time to redeem myself. And seeing as my second favorite cartoon Ed, Edd, and Eddy is on in my room right now and I am here blogging about spirituality, God will consider it a fair trade (that WAS a joke by the way). And yes, I watch cartoons. They are way more entertaining than 99% of the crap that the major networks show. On to the topic: death.

I chose this topic for this Sunday because I went to a funeral this weekend. One of my best friend's sister died of cancer on Wednesday, July 12th 2006. I am not troubled by it--even though I did shed tears at the funeral, because her life was a beautiful mosaic of how the life of a tried and true servant of Christ should appear. Nevertheless to the unprepared, death can disguise itself as a horrible monster in the closet.

What man can live and not see death, or save himself from the power of the grave?

Psalm 89:48

That verse sums it all up. Human beings are meant to die. We are finite beings living and limited by a finite, linear entity called time. Everyone in our respective circles will grow old, and eventually pass on into what lies after. For some, the outcome of death is merely a comma (Judeo-Christian beliefs), and for others an arrow pointing back to where they originally started (reincarnation), and still others who consider death to be a period--with nothing but blackness after.

This weekend I have thought about death and how it has affected me during my lifetime. I'm a decently emotional guy--which sometimes embarasses me, and when faced with the thought that my loved ones will pass on one day I can't help but prepare myself for the inevitable grief that I will have to deal with. I have no doubts that everyone in my tight little circle will end up in the right place, but that doesn't make it any easier.

My favorite verse when I was young and dealing with the death of my mother was 1st Corinthians 15:55, which is in actuality a throwback to Hosea 13:14:

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

1st Corinthians 15:55

And it's 100% true. Death has no hold over the Christian. It is simply a transition into a better state. It is the ultimate evolutionary step for a believer, and often I view it as a reward. Passing from a pain striken world into a glorified state sure sounds like a good thing to me.

There are at least 18 or 19 additional verses in my concordance of my backup Bible (NIV) that I could write about, but most of them are themed the same. Through Christ we have defeated death. Because of His sacrifice we are able to welcome death as the reward that it will be. Amazing. How that should enbolden me to do so many things for the Kindom of God! Instead as an American Christian I act like the proverbial "Cock of the Walk" by shouting "I will die for Him!" How often in our society do we truely get to exercise such an extreme profession of faith as being martyred for what we believe in? If it happens rest assured it will happen only once =). But what if we lived with the danger that we might actually die for what we believe in? How would our days be changed? Words are cheap and people are interested by non-hypocritical actions, and laughing in the face of death while our self-preservation instincts are screaming "run away!" will definately catch someone's attention.

It is hard being a Christian in todays society. All our beliefs are exactly opposite of what the world teaches. We have no reason to fear death, we have no motivation to be selfish, and we have no reason to be first. Quite contrary, Christians thrive in the extreme negatives of each of those concepts. God uses the last for his glory, calms the fears of the grave, and rewards the unselfish. It's amazing how everything that God wants for us is exactly opposite of what we think we want.