Faith | You can have a glorious life after death, but it’s your call

Part of living is facing death. But what happens after death?

As a child, although I lived in a loving, safe environment, I distinctly remember occasionally being afraid of death.

Maybe it’s because around 6-years-old, I fell off of the front end of an irrigation pipe trailer pulled by a tractor, and was completely run over. Miraculously, I came out totally unharmed and somehow the tractor and the trailer missed me.

Also, growing up, I clearly remember learning about two of my school classmate’s siblings who were killed in separate accidents. Later, a high school classmate was killed in a car accident.

Then, at the age of 50, I was given a two-year life expectancy diagnoses from my cancer doctor. With fear of death, I promptly organized my finances for my wife and children, and wrote up my funeral ceremony preferences.

I am blessed, and God has graciously given me many more years to live beyond the initial prediction.

In a normal lifespan, we all have at least one family member or good friend who dies and we have to face what may happen to us after death.

So what is the meaning and purpose to life? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? And what happens after?

Science has many answers, but none of them bring peace like God can.

God alone has the answers which give us a future, even after death and a guaranteed glorious hope. Romans, chapter one, explains that once we reject the truth — not wanting to submit to the reality of a supreme and holy God — we will come up with any excuse imaginable to justify our actions and not believe in him.

Everyone, if mentally competent enough, will either accept God for who he is or replace him with their own type of man-made God or code of ethics. (This includes Evolution which can’t explain how something can be created from nothing.) Certainly, we can choose to deny that God exists and then live life as we deem appropriate, justifying our actions as we see fit.

The common thread of all man-made religions is the hardening of one’s heart to the truth.

We all have a void in our souls which cannot be fulfilled unless we connect with the one and only true God to fill it. He has put in everyone’s heart a desire to know him, and he has given everyone an inner sense — a consciousness — that he is the Almighty Creator God. If we search for the truth, God will reveal himself to us.

It may be hard to imagine a God that loves everyone so much that he treats us all like we are the most important person in the universe. He created us, and he wants to have a personal relationship with us so we can all, someday, live in peace and happiness in his kingdom forever.

All he asks is that we accept the simple truth that a part of him, as Jesus Christ, lived on earth as a perfect, sinless, righteous human — our savior who sacrificed himself on the cross of Calvary for our sins. When we believe this, he gives us his perfect righteousness to live always in heaven with him, our Savior and Lord.

Don’t delay. Trust him.