On Dying - Four Reasons Why You Should Think of Your Death Daily

Our world avoids thinking and speaking of death like the plague. In this regard our culture is an anomaly. For centuries it was in good taste to ponder one’s own death often and deeply.

French artist Auguste Rodin was one of the world’s most gifted sculptors. He lived at the close of the nineteenth century. Many of us are familiar with his bronze figure of a naked man, slightly bent over, with one elbow resting on his knee and his chin cradled on his closed fist. The statue that we refer to as The Thinker is twenty feet tall and took thirty-seven years to complete. The Thinker is perched above a giant door. The door is the centerpiece of a complex multitude of figures below. He is contemplating the fate of those who are separated from God for all eternity.

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1,21).

Death is wonderful for the person who has put his confidence in Christ Jesus. Thus, to think of our impending death as something glorious, out-of-this-world magnificent should be a regular delight, like savoring a piece of fine Swiss chocolate.

Here are four reasons why Christ-followers should regularly and joyfully consider their death.

1.      For the Christian, death ushers in Freedom

Death will bring us freedom from toil and labor, care and burdens. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” (Rev 14:13). The Greek word “care” means “to cut the heart in pieces.” Weariness and pain-filled tears attest to emotional and physical depletion.

Then there is the joy in the greater freedom from the presence and the power of sin. The constant struggle for the Christ-follower is that “the flesh lusts against the spirit” (Gal 5:17). Saint Paul writes of our “body of death” that longs for deliverance (Rom 7:24). Thomas Watson, the dean of puritan theologians writes, “By the body of death is meant the congeries, the mass and lump of sin. It may well be called a body for its weightiness, and a body of death for its noisomeness. It weighs us down.”

Friend, are you burdened by the burdens of life, or the weight of your own sinfulness? Take cheer, death will eliminate those and set you free.

2.      For the Christian, death ushers in Joy

In all things death, Jesus is our Capitan who shows us the way. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12:2). Joy is not happiness. For us the be happy something needs to happen that we deem fortuitous; a raise, wining the lottery, falling in love, landing a promotion. Joy on the other hand is a state of bliss brought on by a loving relationship.

If in death we as Christ-followers will be united with the triune God, as a man is united with his bride on the day of their wedding, then there is pure unadulterated joy! It will be a joy that will glow white hot in its intensity without abating for all eternity.

Friend, there is joy waiting for you the moment you die. Savor a kind of intense deep joy which you have up to now only known in flashes.

3.      For the Christian, death ushers in satisfaction

Death is the doorway to heaven and heaven will never disappoint. "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.'” (John 11:25-26).

Imagine a world in which there is no regret, no mourning, no worrying over spilled milk. All restlessness will cease and, in its place, we will be given enduring peace, as real sense of satedness. Peace will be the gift that keeps on giving.

Friend, what causes you to lose sleep, what do you turn over and over in your mind that unsettles you? Look forward to your death when all uneasiness will fall away and peace unimpeded will be yours.

4.      For the Chrisian, death ushers us into the very presence of God

What makes heaven, heaven is the God of heaven. The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is what makes heaven so heavenly.

Again, Thomas Watson illuminates, “This is the felicity of heaven, to be in the sweet embraces of God’s love; to be the Hephzibah, the delight of the King of Glory; to be sunning ourselves in the light of God’s countenance. Then the saints shall know that love of Christ which passeth knowledge (Eph 3:19). From this glorious manifestation of God’s love will flow infinite joy into the souls of the blessed; therefore heaven is called ‘entering into the joy of the Lord’ (Matt 25:21).

Friend, think about your most intimate and joyful friend on earth. When you have that feeling of friendship secure in your heart, magnify it by one thousand. Only the will you get a glimpse of what being with God will feel like. Where is the fear in dying when such beauty lies before you?

Much like Rodin, sages throughout the centuries thought of death often. It was common for them to place a skull on their desks as they attended to their writings to remind themselves both of the brevity and hardship of this life and of the joy awaiting them after death.

The death of death in the death of Christ, is our death. And it is worth pondering daily with joy.