Our Life on Christ

Sunday, November 27, 2011

When You Die, Will You be Considered a Saint?

A friend of mine, Leavale Hicks, died yesterday.

His death was a shock to many as no one expected it or saw any signs that death was around the corner. He died from "natural causes"; he was not the victim of any violent crime. He was only 30. Not one of knows when our day (or hour, minute, or second) will come. If somehow you were fortunate enough (or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it) to know when your last moment would be, how would you spend it? What will be your departing words? I am not sure what the last words Leavale spoke were but his last Facebook post was inspiring: "...don't stop giving just because people are ungrateful.... God Rewards you, not them...". What a great message to leave with the world!

Will you die being a fisher of men? Will you die keeping your faith to yourself? I guess the best question is: Will you die knowing without a doubt that you are going to heaven? I am in no place to say who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. I am not permitted to judge anyone. I, as my good friend J'yhneyce Mcguire would say, have no heaven or hell to put anyone in. So please read this post and understand that I'm just asking.

Actually I am just going to ask one question.

I believe it is one of the most important questions you can ever answer. Really think about it--don't just assume you know the answer. Many of you may be confused when you think about your answer and that's okay. What's not okay is not getting to an answer. If your answer is not "yes" and you want it to be, please send me a message via Facebook, twitter or simply email me so we can work together to turn things in the right direction.

The QUESTION: Would God call you one of his Saints?

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for this, Wil. We really never know when our time will come. I think I have the problem of thinking, "Oh, when I get more educated on the Bible, then I will talk to more people about God," or, "Tomorrow I am going to find a really good verse that I can share with everyone." I don't know if I will ever get the chance to become some Bible scholar or if I even have tomorrow.

    I think like Pastor Shaun (http://www.courageous.tv or http://shauninthecity.com) said this week at church, we don't need to know everything--we can just share how God has effected our life. The point is to actually share it, though!

    Thanks, again. See you when you wake up!

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  2. Hi Anji and Wil,
    I don't know I missed this post. Sorry to hear about the sudden loss of your friend. Glad to know that he was eager to share about God, and those words sound very wise to me.

    I was thinking about Saints yesterday by coincidence.

    Realizing that when we recieve Jesus the sinner has died and the saint is born. How crazy cool is that?!

    The sad part of it is that the world has a twisted version of sainthood. [big surprise] I think that most of the world would say that Mother Teresa has earned the right to be called a saint. But that's not true at all. As far as I understand it we CANNOT earn this privilage, it's a gift given freely by our God who loves us. We accept this gift, when we choose to accept his son as our saviour. He's the one who did all the work when he poured out his blood as a sacrifice for us. None of our good deeds... even the wonderful deeds of Mother Teresa can trump Christ's sacrifce for us.

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