NO FEAR OF DEATH

It was was our turn to do the Sunday morning service at our local nursing home. After the service when I asked Betty how she was feeling she said “I feel great”! She had a big smile on her face and I knew she meant it.

Betty was I think 96 on her last birthday. She lives in a nursing home and is confined to a wheelchair. Her eyesight is limited and when you speak to her you have to speak loud enough for her to hear you because her hearing isn’t what it used to be, nevertheless she is joyfully vibrant and as sharp as a tack. She is truly an example of 2 Corinthians 4:16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Betty told me she began her walk with the Lord as a child at the age of 7. She also told me that she and her husband, a pastor, were in Christian ministry for about fifty years. She always tells me that she knows more people in heaven than here on earth because so many have gone on before her. That large group includes her husband and a son. She told me that every day now she joyfully thinks about the Lord taking her home. When it was time to say goodby we told each other that if we didn’t see each other again here on this earth, we would meet and fellowship again in heaven. Her faith is so contagious. What excitement! What a reunion! Heaven is so real to her, and it’s so real to me too. No fear of death, only joyful anticipation. And to think, all we’re doing is believing what Jesus our Lord told us.

 

John 14:1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:55-57 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

NO FEAR OF DEATH cont.