Most of us don’t like to think about death, let alone talk about it. It’s a frightening subject. But at one time or another we’ve all been touched by death, suffering the loss of a relative, friend, neighbor, or someone else in our lives.
 
Though we try to prolong life, no one can escape death. When death’s final summons comes, everyone—rich or poor, strong or weak, well-known or unknown—must surrender.
 
Death is frightening not only in its inevitability and power, but also in its mysteriousness. What happens when we die? What awaits us in the great unknown after that? The Bible aptly says that all our life long, we’re held in slavery by the fear of death.
 
Yet our loving Creator, the living God, didn’t intend for us to die.
 
Then where did death come from? Death is the consequence of sin. God created man because He wanted to share His eternal life with man. But before man could receive the life of God, Satan deceived and poisoned man with his sinful nature. As a result, our human spirit, created to contact and receive God, became deadened; our human soul, especially our mind, became an enemy to God; and our human body, created by God as a pure vessel, became polluted with sin, doomed to physically die.
 
Physical death, though, isn’t the end. The Bible tells us that it is reserved for men to die once, and after this comes judgment. What will we be judged for? Most importantly, we’ll be judged based on whether or not we’ve believed in Jesus Christ, the One who died for our sins and overcame death to free us from its power. If we do not believe in Him, we face the second death, which is to perish in the lake of fire in eternal torment.
 
Who is this Jesus Christ in whom we must believe? Jesus is the very God who became a man of flesh and blood. He lived a sinless life and then died on the cross for all of us sinners. Then three days after being crucified, He resurrected from the dead. He defeated the power of death! By dying for us, He solved the problem of our sins; by resurrecting from the dead, He broke the power death had over us.
 
Christ is living now and forever. In resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit, who is now available to everyone, everywhere. As the Spirit, He can enter us with His victorious, death-conquering life. When we receive the resurrected Christ by believing in Him, He makes our spirit alive with His eternal life today, and He delivers us from the second, eternal death in the future.
 
The Lord Jesus wants to free you from the fear of death and give you the hope of eternal life. Just open your heart and pray this prayer:
 
“Lord Jesus, I believe You died for my sins and resurrected from the dead. Thank You for overcoming death and coming to give me eternal life. I receive You as my Savior right now. Amen.”