A man went to his doctor to find out why he had been having such severe headaches. The doctor ran some tests and after a few hours called the man into his office.
“I have terrible news,” he told the patient. “Your condition is terminal.”
“Oh, no!? the man cried. “How long do I have?”
“Ten ...” began the doctor.
“Ten what?” the patient interrupted. “Days? Months? Years?”
“Nine,” continued the doctor, “eight, seven, six ...”
Death is an inevitable fact of life. So far, your chance of dying is at 100%. But our Bibles give us a glimpse of what happens to believers after we die.
First, your soul will continue. There will still be a conscious “you” when they pronounce you dead. The Bible affirms that conscious experiences beyond death are real. Given the choice between earthly troubles and the next life, the Apostle Paul wrote, “We really want to be away from this body and be at home with the Lord.” He was confident that to be away from this body is to be at home with the Lord ((2 Corinthians 5:8, NCV; see also Philippians 1:22 and Luke 23:43).
Second, your body will be resurrected. When believers die they immediately begin to experience the joys of heaven. The operative word in that line, though, is the word “begin.” There is more to the story.
Jesus expected the final reunion of body and soul. “The time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son,” he said, “and they will rise again” (John 5:28-29, NLT)
Across my years of pastoring, I have watched believer’s bodies supported by machines, or grow thin with chemotherapy, or shake uncontrollably with Parkinson’s disease, or pant painfully for just one more breath. And then I have sat in the homes of fools who say that this life is all there is. No! It does not all end here! At Christ’s return the trumpet blast and the archangel’s shout will be loud enough to wake the dead. And from the body that has been there will spring up the body that will be!
Ecclessiastes 7:4 says (NLT), “A wise person thinks a lot about death.” This Sunday, we’ll get a little wiser as we examine the biblical truth about life beyond this life. Join us together at 10!
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