A staggering reality.

Each week I post a new entry on my blog. There are times that I struggle what to write and pray the Lord to help me to write from my heart. This week was one of those times that I did not know where to start but received an answer because someone wrote to me in a personal email a statement “How does one face the reality of death, and truly live?”

The reality is that we all face death sooner or later. I dug into some statistics and came up with the following numbers from this amazing website that shows the reality of the number people dying each hour in the world. On this website you can watch the numbers change before your very eyes. For example each hour 2300 people die in the world, this does not include 1600 abortions each hour, making it a total of 3900 souls leaving this life and starting Eternity. Divide that number by 60 and result is that 65 hearts stop beating each second.

Take a minute and think about this steady stream of 3900 souls per hour entering eternity and you will find these numbers staggering. The media tells us about world tragedies, war, violence or other ways people die but rarely do we hear about these numbers, even rarer is the question, where will this staggering number of souls spend Eternity.

You and I personally will be confronted one day and be one of 3900 in that particular hour. Now the question is “How does one face the reality of death, and truly live?"

Are you hoping for the best and see what happens when you die? Are you ignoring the reality of death, something that will surely happen? Are you denying that there is a God and refuse to seek Him? Many Bible texts refer to the reality of death and that there is a God, this very fact must bring each one of us to our knees today to repent from our sins and believe on Him and receive Eternal life through Jesus.

Repentance and Faith in the Lord Jesus takes away the sting of death. Death is our last enemy, but a defeated enemy. It is my prayer that you will repent from your sins; trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins and receive victory over death and the grave. With that promise of Eternal life we can face death with peace in our hearts, a peace that passes all understanding.

How do I personally take the statement that was made to me in the email “How does one face the reality of death, and truly live?” C.H Spurgeon said it in a beautiful way, and I can only say “Amen” to that. “If there is one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness that we must insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence--what the Lord begins, He completes. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do.”

Please give these things some serious thought.

This week has been extremely busy with many medical appointments including three scans that will shed more light on the progress of the 5 weeks of Chemo treatments. On Monday I hope to meet with my Oncologist to receive the results of all the scans and hopefully the source of the pain can be located. After a 7 day break I have resumed with the Chemo treatments today.

The infection and blood clots that I have in my leg continues to be treated with Antibiotic IV treatments every day at our local hospital. I can feel some progress but it is not completely healed yet. This week I battled with much pain from what I think is some kind of nerve pain in parts of my body, the pain can at times be so intense that I find it very difficult to bare. The origin has not yet been established and only with the help of pain meds can I go through days and nights. I am thankful that these meds are available to relieve the pain somewhat.

Thank you again for so many tokens of love and care in many different ways. So I travel on with life day by day, not looking too far ahead or making any big plans for the future but trusting in the Lord, He makes no mistakes.

 May God bless you and be a blessing to many.
John

Job 14:1 "Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. 2 He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.

 

Psalm 90:9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.   

 

I saiah 40:6 A voice says, "Cry!" And I said,"What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8      The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.