At the Last Supper Jesus says to His disciples, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:1-6).
My friends, I have been a pastor for twenty-seven years now and over that time, I have officiated at literally hundreds of funerals. There is one thing I have discovered that they all have in common, and it is this: at funerals, we all have a tendency to extol the virtues of our deceased loved one beyond the bounds of reality. It’s kind of funny, really. After someone dies, when you speak with family and friends, they will all tell you that their loved one was Mother Teresa. I have yet to do a funeral for one “normal, average, everyday person.” They were all saints!
The truth is none of us are saints. The Bible says, “Everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23). We all make mistakes. I have. You have. Your loved one did, because they were human like you and me. Besides, how “good” they were, has no bearing on what was next for them. They were someone whose life was made up of decisions, choices. Just like us, many of her choices were good. Others, not so much. “We all fall short.”
There is, however, one decision that matters more than any other on the day of a funeral. That is whether they chose to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That is truly the most important decision your loved one ever made. It is the most important decision any of us can make. Why? Because, Jesus is clear, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” That means, regardless of what the world tells you, all faiths do not lead to salvation. There are not multiple paths to heaven. “No one can come to the Father except through me,” Jesus says, and that is the decision we all have to face – whether or not to choose to believe in Jesus.
Thomas wasn’t sure of the way. Are you? Do you believe that “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)? Notice, Jesus says those who “believe in Him.” It is only because of that choice that we can have any certainty of where our loved one is now. Not because of all the wonderful things that they did, or the fact that they were such a good person, but because of the one wonderful thing that Jesus did, and who He was.
I want you to understand that Jesus did that for you as well. So, if you have not made a decision yet, I invite you to ask yourself, “When my time comes. What is next for me?” Think about it. Pray about it. Such a decision will make all the difference for you too.
—————————————————–
Remember you can email praise reports and prayer requests to southchurchprayer@gmail.com. I lift them up every Wednesday at 4:00 pm on Facebook Live.