Not All Will Die

One of my more selfish prayers has always been that God would spare me the experience of death. Talk about wanting your cake and eating it too, I want to go to Heaven and I want to avoid death in the process.

Of course, I don't pray for things that are impossible (that God would ignore my sins) and this prayer is no exception. In I Corinthians 15:51 Paul says, "...we shall not all sleep..." referring to the fact that at the end of the world some will still be alive when Jesus returns – my prayer is that I'd be one of these people.

This is not a new desire, early Christians assumed that they would be alive when Jesus came and in the modern era people like Walt Disney have tried to freeze their bodies (cryogenics) in order to preserve them so they wouldn't experience final death.

A further study of Paul's passage however reminds us all that no matter what our condition will be when Jesus returns (dead or alive) we will all have to undergo change. The dead will be resurrected and the living transformed into new glorious bodies give by Christ Himself.

There is no use trying to preserve these bodies of ours through technology or any other means because you can't get into Heaven with the body you presently have, whether it's healthy or dead. The only body that will be fit for Heaven is the glorious one that will be given to those who have believed in Christ and served Him faithfully in their present state.

I've resigned myself to the fact that being faithful when I die is more important than being alive when Jesus comes. Avoiding the first death would be wonderful but avoiding the second death is more important.