Day 2831 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

John 3:36 NIV

The fear of death only exists if we’ve not yet found the gift of eternal life in the Son of God. We fear it because we know the final judgment it brings. And no matter how long or how hard we’ve tried to convince ourselves otherwise, we know in our hearts that our sinful lives and all the mistakes we’ve made within them cannot withstand that judgment that will be leveled upon our souls when our time on this earth is done and over.

What’s really sad is that the answer to all of this is found in Christ’s words from John 5:24 where He told us point blank that, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” We will not be judged if we are in Christ because Christ already satisfied that judgment. In Him there is only life. But to us, death means destruction. It’s the destruction of all we’ve know, of every hope we’ve had, of every dream we’ve imagined. It’s the final tick of our clock, and on the other side of this life awaits a reality that we’ve long pretended didn’t exist.

The true nature of our humanity and the inevitable dance with our own mortality are things that are largely relegated to afterthoughts hidden deep within the furthest recesses of our minds because we don't want to face them. We don't want to admit that we're not here forever. We don't want to admit that we are in fact running out of time. We don't want to have to face the music and realize that we just can't dance as well as we always thought we could.

Our biggest problem will always be our pride. It tells us that we're better than we are, that our lives aren't all that messed up, and that our mistakes, if anything, are just some strange figment of our imagination brought about by some combination of a truth we don't normally consider and a world which had helped us learn to find solace in lies. Our pride tells us this fairy tale in which we're invincible. And when you hear a yarn as wonderful as that one, you're probably not going to listen to anything else.

And so when this truth comes along that reminds us of our mortality and the limited time we have remaining to line ourselves out, we freak. We run. We ignore it, debate it, cling to any and every lie that we've always relied upon to keep the scary part of life away from ruining our fun and enjoyment. We just want to live like we have forever in this place, because that theory allots us plenty of time to run wild and pretend that we can just ask for forgiveness later after the appeal of sin has worn off.

You see, all this time of living in this sinful fantasy land, we've unknowingly become illiterate to the truth of God's Word. We've lost sight of the gift we've been given in Christ Jesus, and since we know little to nothing about His merciful sacrifice and the forgiveness found within it, we're left holding onto this fear of death. We've been talking about that for a few days now, and it's just honestly one of those conversations that nobody wants to have, but that all of us need to have.

We need to come to terms with the fact that our lives on this earth are not unending. They are finite. They are fleeting. And considering we only have so much time, living as if our time is unlimited is incredibly foolish. It causes us to put off the important things that we simply can't leave undone. We can't put off our salvation, because without it, we have no hope of anything other than what we've earned through all our years of writing checks our souls can't cash.

Many amazing things are missed when we try to avoid the truth. We miss out on seeing just how corrupt we've become. We miss out on seeing that forgiveness is not only drastically needed but also graciously given. We miss out on feeling the power of the cross and the hand that brought Christ out of that tomb begin to work its healing within our hearts. We miss finding freedom because we're lost in a lie that tells us we've already found it. We miss out on moving past this instinctual fear of death into an excited anticipation of Christ's glory being revealed.

Mostly, we miss out on realizing that we don't have to keep running, or pretending, or telling ourselves all these lies in order to avoid the reality of who we've been and what we've been offered despite it. We miss out on understanding that while the cross should have been ours, Christ made it His and exchanged our death for His eternal life in the process.

But still, we just struggle to come to terms with all this truth because it contradicts every lie in which we've long found this strange semblance of hope. We've shoved reality so deep down in our souls so that it doesn't ruin our enjoyment and pleasure, but no matter how deeply it's been buried under all our frolicking, it's still there and that's what scares us. The problem with the truth is that we all know it's unavoidable. And we know that the truth is that we've fallen so shamefully short of God's expectations and commands and desires that we have no choice but to admit we deserve to suffer forever.

We just have to decide how long we want to keep running from that truth. Oddly enough, the running is what keeps us afraid. We're trying to outrun something that we know we can't outrun. We're trying to live our lives in a way that we know isn't right, but we're just having so much fun that we can't bear the thought of giving it all up and facing the music that demands our humility and leads to the repentance we long avoided.

Our fear of death stems from our fear of truth. We've lived a lie so long that we know what we deserve, and that punishment is so terrifying that we can't face it. But the fact is that at one point or another we will either choose to or be forced to face it. A day will come when our running from God will be ended and we'll be forced to admit all we've done. The gift of our faith is that we can make that day today. We can choose to find humility rather than having it painfully forced upon us. We can hit our knees before God forces us to do so.

Right now, we have the opportunity to accept the gift of life. We know we deserve death. We know we've done so many things against God that we have no hope. We know that our choice to live as His enemies means we'll be defeated and broken. We know that we've earned the full fury of His righteous wrath. And that's why we fear death. Because when our death comes, we know that His wrath is waiting for us. We know that we'll no longer have any time to pretend otherwise. We know that the game will be over, and so we know that our death means our demise.

But it doesn't have to! And if we're willing to admit our guilt, it won't. If we can bring ourselves to admit our wrongs and ask for His forgiveness, we'll find it. If we hit our knees and beg Him to invade our hearts where He can begin to bring us back to life, we will find that death is no longer scary. As I said a couple of days ago, we're all gonna die at some point. It can either be in our sin, or to our sin. Dying in our sin is what's terrifying because we know our sins deserve God's wrath. Dying to our sin is only scary because we don't want to let them go.

Let them go or have them taken. That's literally the only options we have here.

If we believe in Christ, accept Him into our hearts, make Him King of our lives, and let Him lead us away from all the stupid things we've been and done, we will find life. If we don't, we'll find death. It couldn't be easier or more straightforward. We just have to stop making it so hard by muddying the waters with our prideful fear of the inevitable.

Friends, God's wrath stands upon all those who reject Christ. And that undeniable fact is what gives birth to our fear of death. We're afraid of His wrath because we know we can't stop it, avoid it, ignore it, or talk our way out of it. But that's the gift of what Christ has done for us. He took God's wrath. He satisfied His vengeance. He bore the full weight of God's hand and endured the punishment we deserve to experience. All we have to do is accept that gift and change our lives as a result.

We don't have to live in fear of death knowing that it means the immediate facing of God's wrath for our mistakes. We can accept His offering of forgiveness through repentance that leads to eternal life by simply admitting our guilt and asking Him to help us learn to do better by humbly following His Son. If we choose to remain in our sinful ways, then His wrath will remain upon our shoulders. And that is the definition of terrifying. But we've been handed a way to avoid it. Christ is the propitiation of our sins. But only if we accept Him as our Savior.

Death doesn't have to mean wrath. It can bring peace. But there's only way to change that definition of death and how we look at it. Seek His forgiveness my friends. We all need it. We literally can't live without it. But with it, we can move beyond this fear of punishment and live the rest of our lives with an anticipation of something far better than what we all know we fully deserve. Death has lost its sting, stop doing the stupid things that make it continue to hurt.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold