“When I couldn’t reach my mom by phone this morning I was concerned and drove over to check on her. I found her kneeling by her bed motionless. She went to be with Jesus today. She had marked this in her Bible yesterday.”
That tweet was from a lady whose mother died on her knees. My sister sent it to me as I was getting ready to read my Bible. It brought me to tears. I don’t know that lady’s mother, but the way she died has given me a new goal. I not only want to live well, I want to die well.
As that precious lady was kneeling in prayer, she had her Bible open on the bed. It had a small dried flower and a note on it. That flower must have held a special memory to go between those sacred pages. This lady was a warrior. The underlining and notes all over the open pages of her Bible showed she was no casual observer. She took up her sword and wielded it daily (and nightly obviously). The tweet also had her picture. She was thin, wrinkly, naturally gray-headed, and one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
Matthew 6:22
Her eyes were soft, gentle, peaceful, confident, and kind enough to make me cry. Through her eyes, I could see her soul. It was full of light.
In shaky handwriting, she had written two things on the note. The first was “Thanksgiving.” Underneath it had the scripture reference, 1 Chronicles 16:7-36. I looked it up and it is a whole section of scripture that praises God for who He is and what He does. I recommend everyone read it today.
The second thing written had God’s sovereign hand all over it.
It read…
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1 Corinthians 15:26
He showed us, through her, what a true warrior on this planet does. She prays and praises because she knows her great enemy has become her doorway to victory. Jesus, through the cross, took away the sting of death for all of us. Death is now our discharge from war.
I love watching military men and women get off of a plane and run with all their might toward their waiting family members. They have waited for this day and the anticipation is electric. They know the person they love is going to be in their arms and they cannot wait.
We are those soldiers coming home; Jesus is our loved One waiting to wrap His arms around us.
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
Psalm 116:15
When we die, we have no more enemies and no more battles to face. It is over. We can lay our weapons down. We will be in the presence of our Father and our King.
We will bow in adoration and worship, not in fear and anxiety. Our faith will be sight. If we knew the joy waiting for us, we would all have a death wish. It may sound crazy, but I believe God leaves most of heaven a mystery for a huge reason, we would all want to go now.
He let a man experience heaven and live to tell us about it. His name is Paul (the apostle). Listen to what he said after visiting heaven.
If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
Philippians 1:22-24
Die and be with Christ=Far better
Remain in his body=More necessary
See why God can’t let all of us see the other side. No one would want to stay here. He lets us cling to life and cling to him so very necessary things can get done through us.
Necessary things:
- Raising our children.
- Praying for each other.
- Spurring each other on.
- Comforting each other.
- Building ministries to further the gospel.
- Giving us time to know Him so we are ready to run full blast to meet Him on our appointed day.
If someone we barely knew met us at the airport when we were discharged from the military, we would be devastated, not delighted.
We should make it our life’s purpose to know Him. We cannot love who we do not know. We cannot love who we do not trust. We cannot know who we do not spend time with. We can pretend all we want while we are alive, but death is the great leveler and exposer of us all.
What took me down the road of dying well was the impact of the way Jesus died. Not only did the thief on the cross put his faith in Jesus as the day wore on, but the Roman centurion believed He was the Son of God by the way He died. The centurion was standing in front of him; watching every move and listening to every word. He had to be the most amazed man on the planet at that moment.
When Jesus died, the centurion didn’t say, “This was a good man.” He said something astounding about someone who was thought a criminal.
And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Mark 15:39
How did he come to that conclusion? The way Jesus actively died convinced him that He was the Son of God. Our actions and words show who we are. That soldier had witnessed many deaths. Crucifixion exposed people not only physically, but emotionally, and spiritually.
The two thieves on the cross hurled insults at Jesus at the beginning. The contents of their wicked hearts came hurling out. Their anger and hatred toward Him were evident. The fact they knew He had done miracles but wouldn’t save them or Himself, disgusted them.
People want to see the miraculous and fantastic. Jesus could have wowed the people watching Him die with a miracle of some kind. He didn’t. He just died with love pouring forth.
He made sure His mother would be cared for. He prayed for the people mocking Him, and He cried out to His Father. He said very little but the essence of who He was poured out to anyone who would receive the truth. An all-powerful Being would never submit to death without a fight; yet He did. He is so opposite of us in every way.
A centurion, whose whole life was about fighting and torture, watched a man put up no fight. I think Jesus final words rocked his world.
Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Luke 23:46
Jesus used His last breath to shout out the reality of who He was, The Son of The Living God. That cynical Roman soldier probably had a pretty strong B.S. detector. He saw the intimacy between a Son he could see, speaking to the Father that he could not see; he believed what he experienced. The dying Son made the Father and heaven real. So real, that two violent and hardened men believed that day.
That should be our deathbed testimony. We should be so intimate with our Father, that our greatest desire is to be with Him. There is a reason Jesus said this:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.
Luke 10:27
If God doesn’t get all of us now, we will never want to leave what we love more. My biggest fear was leaving my children when they were small. I couldn’t help it. They were my world (not God). Even when I completely gave myself to God, I still feared it. It has taken me many years to trust God enough to leave this planet.
It is now one of my greatest desires. I love my life but I could leave today without telling my family good-bye if God called me home.
My family knows I love them. The funny thing is when we give our whole hearts to God, we love everyone else fiercely and loosely. We cling to no one and have no need to suck the life out of people.
Until I got to this place by faith, I had to choose to believe the fact that God is good and He does all things well. If He allowed me to die, I began to trust that He would only take me away because it was better for them, me, and His kingdom. He would not allow something so horrible if not for a greater good.
C.S. Lewis’ mother died when he was a small boy. He prayed desperately for her to live. Those prayers were heard and answered. God said, “no.” Lewis was devastated and became an atheist as a child. Only God saw the big picture. He had a plan for Lewis that was so much greater than his mother’s physical presence. He was going to some day use his pain, atheism, and brilliant mind to draw him to salvation. He then used C.S. Lewis’ to shape a generation for the glory of God.
We will never understand God’s way of doing things this side of heaven. Our minds are too limited. However, if we get to know Him intimately, we will trust Him completely.
A Roman soldier was convinced Jesus was the Son of God by how He died, not how He lived. The way we die should be our last and greatest testimony.
