“Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8
March 20, 2023
An initial credit is due. Erwin W. Lutzer has written a valuable tract entitled, “One Minute After You Die.” I wish to hitchhike on the thought behind it. Grief has a way of channeling our thinking to things that really matter. Lutzer says “One minute after you die you will be either enjoying a personal welcome from Christ or catching your first glimpse of gloom as you have never know it. Either way your future will be irrevocably fixed and eternally unchangeable.” For those who are born again Scripture gives us promises that are tantalizing. “[We] prefer to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Imagine seeing the resurrected, glorified Lord Jesus Christ. If it’s like John’s vision of Christ in Revelation 1:12-16 we will be knocked off our feet, and told to be calm (“Do not be afraid…”). Of course, we will not be in our sin-plagued minds at that time. On another occasion Jesus told his troubled disciples that in His “Father’s house are many rooms” (Jn. 14:2). What’s that like? We can be confident this will surpass the best of man-made mansions. While Jesus hung on the cross, He promised the thief on the cross that “today you will be with me in Paradise” (a Persian word for garden, Lk. 23:43). This evokes thoughts of the garden of Eden. Certainly we can expect at the moment of death entrance into a place of beauty and delight. There will be no disappointments. By the way, there is no such place as purgatory (time in the penalty box). We have a truth-rich hope of what it means to be in the presence of Christ one minute after we die. Are we living with a spring in our step even if it is a shuffle? The best is yet to come.
H