Do You Believe This?

JESUS SAID, “THOSE WHO LIVE AND BELIEVE IN ME WILL NEVER DIE. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?" John 11.26.

People do not think about death or fear death until they face the possibility of death. Yet, the number of people who buy life (death) insurance is not small! A friend of mine, a medical specialist, bought an insurance for one million pounds! He was drinking and smoking and dissipating his life as though he would never die! But he died young! Of course, he didn’t live to see his money. But as it happens, it became a boon to his distressed wife and young son.

Yes! Death is the only certainty in this life, as someone once said. The Bible also is in agreement with it. Only it adds more to it saying, “It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment” (Heb 9.27).

Even if you have bought a life insurance you will still die! But here is the promise of Jesus Christ that ‘if you believe in Him while you are alive and still here on earth you will not die!’ To die without Jesus is to die without hope and not knowing where you are heading to! Jesus Christ died and rose again, conquering death. Therefore, if you believe in Him, He will receive you when you die. His angels will carry you into His presence the moment your soul and spirit leave your body! That is what Jesus explained when He said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Therefore those who believe in me will live, even though they die”. When you die, death will not be the end but the beginning of a new life with Christ in heaven. That is the joy and confidence of believing in Jesus now!

When Jesus said, ‘those who live and believe in me will never die’, He was not referring to your physical death which you cannot avoid. Rather He was speaking about ‘the death of your soul and spirit!’ No! They will never perish or die! The Bible says, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior” (John 3.16,17).

Dear friend, have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, your Saviour? If you have, you do not have to fear death. You will live with Christ for eternity even if you die here on earth! My friend who was eighty and in the ICU with a heart attack was scheduled for an angiogram and angioplasty. The cardiologist told him all about the risks at his age and in his condition. When I went to visit him and pray for him, it was encouraging to hear him express his confidence in life and in death because of Jesus Christ his Saviour who was dead and is alive forever more! You may be in the pink of health today, but tomorrow you may face the struggle of life and death! Are you living in a day to day abiding faith in the risen Christ that will assure you of the victory that overcomes death?

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, help me to keep my faith alive and active in this life so that I will be assured of a wonderful life with You in ‘paradise’ after death. Amen.