Many Christians dread the thought of leaving this world. Why? Because so many have stored up their treasures on earth, not in heaven. Each day brings us closer to death. If your treasures are on earth, that means each day brings you closer to losing your treasures.
The Treasure Principle, 2002, p. 40, Used by Permission from Eternal Perspective Ministries, www.epm.org. Get this book!
He who lays up treasures on earth spends his life backing away from his treasures. To him, death is loss. He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity; he’s moving daily toward his treasures. To him, death is gain. He who spends his life moving toward his treasures has reason to rejoice. Are you despairing or rejoicing?
The Treasure Principle, 2002, p. 43, Used by Permission from Eternal Perspective Ministries, www.epm.org. Get this book!
The idea that life on earth is so infinitely precious that the death which robs us of it must be the ultimate tragedy is precisely the idolatry that [God is often trying] to combat.
Revelation, Hendrickson, 1966, p. 113.
Let us consider this settled, that no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection.
Institutes, 3.10.5.
Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
Resolution Number 9.
I account this body nothing but a close prison to my soul; and the earth a larger prison to my body. I may not break prison, till I be loosed by death; but I will leave it, not unwillingly, when I am loosed.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 71.
If God has work for me to do I cannot die.
Death is never the last word in the life of a…man. When a man leaves this world, be he righteous or unrighteous, he leaves something in the world. He may leave something that will grow and spread like a cancer or a poison, or he may leave something like the fragrance of perfume or a blossom of beauty that permeates the atmosphere with blessing.
For we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world (1 Tim. 6:7). There are no U-Hauls behind hearses.
Desiring God, p. 161, copyright Bethlehem Baptist Church, used by permission, www.DesiringGod.org. Get this book!
I don’t so much pray that my death will be without pain, but that it will be without doubt.
Pray that thy last days, and last works may be the best; and that when thou comest to die, thou mayest have nothing else to do but die.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 72.
We Christians often act like heathen. We preach that it is wonderful to be a Christian, that Heaven is to be gained and Hell shunned. Then when one of our loved ones dies, we act as if it were all a lie. Our actions say that this world is better than the next, that death is a tragedy, and we ask querulously in our unbelief, Why? Why? Why?… Shame on us! When we weep and lament at the death of our loved ones [beyond God’s-honoring grief], we often make void our testimony, cast reflection upon the Bible and irreverence on Heaven. For the Christian, death is not a tragedy but a glorious promotion – not the sad end, but the glorious beginning.
Bible Facts About Heaven, Sword of the Lord, 1940, p. 38.
In the sight of the coffin and the grave it is not easy to be proud.
Sickness.
When we die we leave behind us all we have, and take with us all we are.
One may live as a conqueror, a king or a magistrate; but he must die as a man.
