We are all familiar with the expression: "There is nothing certain but death and taxes". Somehow I think we tend to focus more on the reality of the taxes than that of death. Actually I think we all live in denial of death. It's like the elephant in the room that we try to ignore. As people who have come to lean with all our weight on Jesus, we need to "Cross over" to the promised land that no longer denies death but deals with it honestly. The fact is, if we have opened our heart to the Lord and invited Him in, death has lost its sting and just like Daniel's three friends: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego death will be like a fire that neither consumes us nor leaves its smell. I believe that the sting of death is the bondage it keeps us in during this life. It can cause us to worship the temporary things that are associated with our brief time on earth because then we can ignore the reality of our earthly end. We need to bury death in Jesus' empty tomb. We are now citizens of heaven and we face an eternal future in the presence of the Lord. This is freedom. Death is no more an end than the short tunnel on the Colonial Parkway under Colonial Williamsburg is a brick wall. When we have faced death with the resurrection power of the Lord we can end its grip. The worst this life can do, at that point, is dispatch us to heaven, ushered into the courts of Almighty God! Death and taxes may be certain but certain, also, is the promise of eternal life that begins here who have believed in the risen Lord.
John 8:51 "Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”
blessings,
Rob Smith
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