Death is not the End of Life but the Start of Another—R Fritz
When we look at death, we normally believe life is over when we stop breathing. That is man’s interpretation of our life being over. God has a different plan for those who choose and follow him. It is a spiritual plan devised by God so we could be in his presence without sin, God would not let sin exist in his presence. Until Jesus came, animals were used for sacrifices for our sins. Jesus was the last and God’s gift for an eternal sacrifice for our sin once and for all. All we had to do was accept Jesus as that savior, turn from our sins (repent) and follow Jesus down a path of righteousness with the Holy Spirit teaching us all things. God’s perfect plan that some refuse to follow because we know a better way gives us the willingness to believe a lie. It is that lie with pride rising in us is the reason we do not see what is happening because we believe in ourselves more than God’s wisdom right before us and we do not see it. We just need to ask for wisdom. James 1:5-7 says “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For him, that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.” Our God knows what is best for us whether we like it or not, we just need to ask and believe God and trust he will give us what we have asked for as we have not wavered.
When I started writing on death there was somebody that was on my mind and when I started, I did not know this person was going to die nor I would be writing about this person and some of the things I saw because I was with this person the last week and the last night. I was asked by the Holy Spirit that I would write this. I think we have been around people that have died where they are on their death bed and see them get better before they die. In this person’s case we saw several miracles over the years, these were miracles other people saw in the hospital and pointed them out. Some I saw as normal because I saw so many. The people around this person saw what God could really do and were blessed and on the other hand these people saw a person that was fighting to hang around and be with us for a reason. God used this person to bring us together as a group. What I saw in the last couple of days is things that one person saw or heard about this person in life were not seen or heard by other people. It was a reason to talk about the past. God has a reason and a purpose for us to be here on earth. We usually do not get to pick how we die, that is God’s department. In this person’s case it was to get ready for the time when they would be leaving this life to go to our other life, the promised life. The promised life is where we go after death where we spend eternity. The life on earth is a testing place to see if we will choose Jesus and his ways and change where our life goals become like Jesus’s. That time when we choose Jesus can happen any time before our death. God is going to judge our heart, which is the measure that God uses. 1 Kings 8:39 says “Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)” Why does God judge the heart? The heart is the place that stores who we are. The outward appearance can be dressed up and we do not see the real person. The heart, the inward place that shows our true character that we cannot see is where God can see all things including who we really are and where he judges.
What we go through makes us stronger. In Jesus’s case he fasted and was in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, he was tempted during that time. He did not have to endure that because he was God in the flesh, he was showing us what life could be and how to overcome the wilderness experience, that experience happens in our life. We try to go through this wilderness experience by ourselves with the people around us. Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ which strenghteneth me.” It says we can do “all” things and all means all through Jesus because he strengthens us because it is the Holy Spirit that lives in us that does the work, yet we want to go through the wilderness on our own. I saw in this person that spent their last night with a definite goal to go to their future home enough to first tell the people around them, then to battle to get there in the last hours of their life which I heard said. It was a reminder of where this person was willing to fight to get to. The nurse came in to tell me how strong this person was because the struggle was enough to possibly get them out of the bed, which I told the nurse. They came in to give them something to calm them down. The spiritual battle I saw was affecting me in that neither one of us was at peace until given something to calm them. After they calmed down, I looked and saw they were breathing and the next thing I saw was the nurse waking me up and telling me that they passed. Finally with death, we both got the peace we needed.
God’s character is love, grace, mercy, peace. God is love; love that surpasses what man knows, is unconditional love with no expectations from him. God loved us so much Jesus was sacrificed so we would get the truth and an opportunity to live with God forever. Life is about how we treat people and what we do for each other. John 15:12-14 says, and this is Jesus’ speaking “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Jesus calls us friends if we follow his commandments, the people around us as well as those we meet are our friends. In other words, there is no greater show of love than the need to lay down our life for somebody in need.
The words we all want to hear after death is “Well done, good and faithful servant.” They are the words spoken in Matthew 25:23. In the meantime we will be waiting for the time when there is no more death. Revelation 21:4 says, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” This is our future, let’s live life to the fullest remembering those that need us. God Bless.
