"Step One, Two, Three!"

"O LORD, Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit." (Psalms 30:3) As crazy as this might sound, but I am not afraid of death; I might be concerned about how it is that I will die, but death is only a whole new beginning as far as I am concerned. This ability to have the attitude which says, I am not afraid to die, is based upon the faith that I have in what my Lord has done; not only has He removed all sin from condemning me, and given me eternal life with Him, but He has also taken away the fear of death by having conquered death Himself! In Galatians 1:3-5, Paul makes a short statement that sums up what I am talking about when I say that He has taken away my fear, when he says, "Grace be to you, and peace, from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of the Father: to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." That thing called 'peace' that Paul mentions, it takes away all fear of death and what might await us, because it replaces that fear with a knowledge of God's goodness towards us, and His desire to deliver us from the curse of 'this present evil world'. You really need to believe this is true for that peace to be confirmed in your life; and when I say confirmed, I mean that your peace remains when it is called upon! I can not begin to tell you the number of people I have known who fall apart at the thought of death, and who, when they should embrace death as a new beginning, instead, they act as if it is the end. This is what I meant the other day, when I said that those things were based upon what we believe; because we must believe that it is so, in order to experience that real peace that is given us by the Lord; because our faith is based upon what we do not see, but what we know in our hearts to be true; and in believing it is so, we can embrace death as the new beginning of our eternity with our Lord. Do you have that peace in the light of death? If not, you should; and if you don't, you should be asking why you don't; and if you don't believe it is possible to have it, then start thanking God for your eternal life, and see if it shows up... "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden." (Galatians 6:3-5)