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Preparation for Eternity

"Prepare to meet your God."¹

"I came home from work last evening," said David E. Leininger a while ago, "greeted the family, changed clothes, and began reading the mail. The Newsweek magazine was there, so I began flipping through it. Early on I came to this rather striking ad: it said, '… You're DEAD. What do you do now? Just for a minute, think the unthinkable. Think about when suddenly you're not there.'² And then the ad goes on to try to sell life insurance. Years ago, a friend of mine who was an insurance agent would approach potential clients on the street and say, 'I had a dream about you last night … I dreamt you died … and you didn't have insurance!' The amazing thing to me is that his approach actually worked—he made a fine living."³

I find it interesting that the first thing many people read in the daily newspaper is the obituary notices. I don't know why except it is an admission of sorts that death is a fact of life.

Other people avoid reading the obituary notices altogether as they don't want to even begin to think of death. This is sad because sooner or later it happens to us all. In younger days death seemed a lifetime away—and it was. The years passed, then my father died, then my mother, then my oldest sister … and now, along with my younger sisters, I'm next in line. Dying doesn't bother me, but the process can be frightening if one should lose his or her health and, especially, his or her mind. Over that we have little or no control.

However, what we do have control over is life after death. Should you have a dream tonight that you died, what would happen to you? Where would you spend eternity if this were a reality and not a dream? Better still, where will you spend eternity when it is a reality?

God has an insurance plan exactly for this purpose and it is totally without charge to you. You can read about it by clicking on: http://tinyurl.com/real-christian and read the article, "How to Be Sure You're a Real Christian—Without Having to Be Religious."

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for letting me know in your Word that I need to be prepared to meet you at the end of my life here on earth. And thank you for showing me the way you have provided for such preparation by accepting your Son, Jesus, as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Amos 4:12 (NIV).
2. Ad for the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, Newsweek, 2/26/96.
3. In a sermon by the Rev. Dr. David E. Leininger, "Thinking About the Unthinkable." (Unfortunately, the web site is no longer available.)

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