I was attending the funeral of the father of a friend, and his older brother stood up to speak. "People have been telling me in the last few days how sad they are that my father has died," he said. "But what is death, and what is life? From the day we are born on this earth, we are in a process of death. It is only a matter of time until each one of us will die. I want to tell you that my father has not died. In fact, he has just begun to live."
The American author Randy Alcorn in a novel tells the story of a believer who died in a car accident. Alcorn uses his imagination to describe what happens to this man as he leaves this earth. He is accompanied by his guardian angel and is taken to a large room where he meets Jesus and his believing family and friends who have gone on before him. The large room, the first place he will see in heaven, is called "the birthing room." It is there that the believer who has died really "enters into life."
These are indeed the words of Jesus: "It is better for you to enter life."
Is this not what we are all waiting for? How much better to leave this body of death-this world where everything is dying and decaying-and enter into real life. Life that is eternal, life that is of so much higher quality than anything we can know or even begin to imagine here on this earth.
- 30 NOVEMBER -