Death, How to Face it without Fear

I sat down today to have my quiet time. I started a week or so ago going through my Pastor's past sermons. I have been battling with something and knew I needed help. I decided that help could come from my Pastor in a slightly different way then seeking counseling sessions. In my quiet time I listened to his message on Revelation 1:17-18. He pointed out, and rightly so, that most of us spend a lot of time avoiding death, and even thinking about death. We have come up with a bazillion words to describe what we do not want to accept. We are a dying people. We are a dead people.

When sin entered the world, things literally went to Hell in a handbasket. Everyone died in Adam that day. We are true Zombies. We live and breathe and move around, but we are dead spiritually. I don't feel dead, do you? Bodily we are not dead of course. It is spiritually that we are dead. God breathed the breath of life into Adam and man became a living soul. We became different from the animals God had created. We were made in God's image. Therefore when Adam and Eve sinned, they spiritually died just like God had told them. God has been working on redemption ever since. He has finished the work of spiritual redemption through what Jesus Christ did on the cross, but there is still a physical redemption to be had. He is working on that.

In regard to death, Jesus conquered it. Most Christians don't even live with this in mind. Many of us are just as fearful of dying as those who have not received Jesus as their Savior. Why? We embrace the culture around us, and spend just as much time fighting off aging and death as everyone else. This is our cultural norm. A few weeks ago I looked up what the average American lifespan is. I found that for men it's around 78, and women its 82. In my mind I though to myself, wow, I have a shot at 82! That is 33 more years to live! Woot! I can do lots of fun things in that time. I too am in the mindset of fighting off death in order to play and have fun, in order to accomplish my personal goals.

Death is coming whether I like or accept it or not. Death is not a faithful companion, it is the enemy, but Jesus conquered death. Because He conquered death, I don't need to be fearful of it. I need to accept death as an inevitable reality, and live my life, not for me, but for Him who saved me. If I want to face death without fear, I need to trust in the One who conquered death and I need to follow Him in faith. I need to accept what death is, the reality of it and stop running away from the truth. What that is going to look like for me I don't know yet. I am sure of this, its time to put away this fear and trust the One who loves me and sent His Son to be my salvation.