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If we are in our 70’s and beyond, we can no longer put off our post death planning. We are now living in our final years of life. The truth is, none of us at any age can put off thinking about this because none of us knows when we are going to die. We can just as easily die of a car accident in a minute, or a heart attack or stroke, as we can of a slow, chronic condition in old age. Even now, at nearly 80 years of age, I don’t know if I will live 5 more minutes or 10 more years. It is all up to God in the end.
But if we are waiting until “someday” to get right with God, that day may never come. It is a very dangerous game to play. Waiting until old age to do it is risky because too many people never make it to that point in life. The same goes for our plan to get right with other people. But I plan to talk about that later in this post. The truth is, at this point in our lives, we need realize we are in the final chapter of our life.
Getting right with God!
I became a Christian as a young child. But I was tormented all through childhood and high school regarding the assurance of my salvation. I remembered receiving Christ, but I constantly second-guessed it and I’m certain it was an attack of Satan. (And I’m slow to call things a Satanic attack.) Finally, in desperation, I prayed to receive Christ again in high school just to make sure. As soon as I did and made a public profession, I realized the first one was real. I wouldn’t have been so concerned all those years if I hadn’t been a true Christian. I wouldn’t have exhibited so much fruit of the Spirit over the years either. But none of my counselors at the Christian School I attended mentioned that to me. They were just so happy that I had become a Christian. They equated my talking often in class as being rebellious instead of what it most likely was: ADD and immaturity. But that is a story for another day!
Years later, I came to understand theologically what happened when Christ died for me and what we are doing when we “receive Christ into our lives” or become “in Christ” or “become a Christian” in the Biblical sense. See the previous post for a link with more information or click here.
I had such a jumble of true information mixed in my head that I ended up being very confused. The combo resulted in a lot of false attitudes. Guilt really ate me up. Then I realized that God loved me more than I ever could dream. When I failed to meet my lofty goals, He did not look at me with disgust unlike many of the adults around me. He looked on me with compassion because He had already died to pay for the sin I seemed so intent on working to atone for myself. It was impossible. On one hand, I knew it. I knew I couldn’t earn my way to heaven. On the other, I felt I was such a disappointment to God, I still needed to try harder to please Him just as I did with those around me. But it seemed to be such a losing battle.
After college and once I was settling into married life, I began experiencing a taste of human unconditional love and the anxiety I often felt to please others lessened. My behavior didn’t change that much, but my internal dialogue changed a lot! I started realizing that Jesus had accepted me for who I was, but wasn’t going to leave me there. He had redeemed me and was changing me in the context of someone who loved me, not someone who was fed up with me and couldn’t stand me or was irritated by my many shortcomings.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.Psalm 103:8-19 ESV
The time to have our eternal affairs in order is now. Do you know a pastor you can talk to? Or a Christian whose faith is genuine and can help you learn how to find assurance of faith for eternity? Now is the time to deal with this, not later, no matter what your age. I can tell you that living a life with God has been a very happy, joyous one. It has not always been peachy, or problem free, but it has been a very good life. God has met our needs and has been good to us.
Getting right with other people.
This is not a postscript by any means, but it is an important part of this post. It has to do with forgiveness of others for the wrongs they have done to you and getting right with them over the wrongs you have done to them. Maybe you hurt them or they hurt you? It is easy to simply stuff the anger and hurt you have felt at the pain they caused you and let it stew, sometimes for years. But it does you and those around you no good.
God wants us to forgive others just as He forgave us. Do we realize the degree to which we have offended God? It’s so easy to minimize the ways we have offended Him and others and maximize the ways they offend us. Many years ago, I read much of the content of a book on forgiveness by Lewis B. Smedes. It was serialized in Christianity Today magazine and later published as Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. He made many points about forgiveness that hit me hard such as: forgiveness is letting the prisoner free and finding the prisoner was you. I have found this to be true over time both in myself and in the lives of others around me. I also learned from him that the forgetting aspect of forgiveness is not so much that you don’t remember the historical fact of what happened, but you make a commitment not to dwell on the anger, resentment, and pain tied to what happened. That is powerful! But it brings about a huge freedom. I can now talk about painful events from my past without the anger and resentment that once went with them. I can also go years without even thinking about them. That is a true miracle. It was a great book. I strongly recommend it.
I also remind you (and myself) of the truth that we as Christians show that we are disciples of God by how we love each other. Hard words, but true.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35 ESV
