I heard a sermon in which the preacher taught that from the time we are born we start to die.  Our death may be due to an accident, disease, or natural causes, and between the years from birth to death we will make choices.   Serve God or Satan, truth or error, believe or disbelieve, and select treasures on earth or treasures in heaven.   It is all about choices.  Our choices in this life determine where we will spend eternity.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell:  but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”   Joshua 24:15

I never really knew what death was.  I was a young lady interrupted.  My parents died, my grandparents died, my aunt died, but their deaths were so far removed from me I had no feeling about it at all.  I had been removed from my home years earlier. I went to funerals of members of the Lord’s church, participated in singing at funerals when asked, and went to my brother-in-law’s funeral (he died less than one day removed from the hospital).  A flesh eating disease killed him.  He never made the choice to study God’s Word; he spurned our offers to teach him. The choice was his…..and on the day of his death, he believed just reading a verse or two from Scripture, and believing in God, would save him. So many opportunities existed for him to make a right choice, but he answered the world’s call.  He was ushered into eternity without God, the choice being his.  He chose to lay up treasures on earth instead of heaven, and for him death was off in the future, just as many now think there is more time.  “Be not deceived…”  We don’t hold the clock, and we are not guaranteed our next breath.  The young die as well as the old.

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”     Psalms 90:10

I really never knew about death until it touched me, and then I knew how fragile man is.
I taught my husband the Gospel, he became a Christian, and he served God until his untimely death.  Though my heart was torn from me in this life, I had a peace.  He is now in paradise.

Choices…… I don’t believe we know about real loss until we have lost something we love more than ourselves.

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”    I Thessalonians 4:14

“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was:  and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”   Ecclesiastes 12:7

In the end, make right and godly choices.  Satan convinces us death is a long way off, but Satan lies.  Death is nearer than we think, and it is certain.  Eternity hangs in the balance.  The choice is up to you.

“You are free to make whatever choice you want, but you are not free from the
consequences of the choice.”

Eileen Light