Have you ever thought about how short life is?
We shop at the Rainbow Grocery store. The people who work there are so friendly! There’s one guy in particular we got to know very well, named Chris. He seemed to be there every time we went, which was quite often since we swung by there on our way home from wherever we were that day. He was so joyful and happy. He made us laugh, and loved to joke around with us. We always left with a smile on our face!
Then, there was a period where we didn’t see him. My mom asked about him, and found out that he was not doing well and was waiting for a heart transplant. We had no idea. My mom got his phone number and thought she would call and tell him we would be praying for him… Then she thought maybe it would be better to send a card and a book…a few weeks went by and she had done neither. I guess she thought there was time.
Well, we went to Rainbow today, as my mom saw one of Chris’s friends, it occurred to her that she still had not gotten his address. She asked this friend of his how Chris was doing. Her response was “he died yesterday.”
My mom and I cried on the way home. To think he is gone! He was so young, I think in his early twenties. It only seemed like yesterday when we saw that bright joyful face! This is the first death of someone I knew well that I’ve ever experienced, and it really hit me hard! Rainbow will never be the same anymore.
I have a lump in my throat as I am writing this. I never really thought how hurtful it can be when someone you know dies!
And to think…we never once shared the Gospel with him. I remember a time where I had a tract in my hand, and I was about to hand it to him. I never did. My mom thought about sharing the Gospel with him. But she didn’t. And now it’s to late. I had a good cry that night. The guilt is so heavy. We don’t know where he is right now. If I only knew that he was in Heaven, I think I could of taken it better. Maybe someone else reached him with the Gospel. We can only pray.
God commands us to go preach the Gospel to all nations! This is where we disobeyed and stand guilty.
In Mark 16:15, Jesus tells us to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”
Romans 10:14-15 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”
In the book “One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven,” Mark Cahill says, Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:11, “The Son of man has come to save that which was lost.” If the utmost importance for Jesus was to reach the lost, shouldn’t it be a major priority for us? Click here.
I comfort myself in the fact that, we know that God is sovereign over everything.
This was a wake-up call for me. This really opened my eyes, and made me see how short life really is! We should be living each day as if it were our last! Instead we live as if we have all the time in the world. If you know of someone that you feel you should share the Gospel with, please do it. We should be telling everybody! They could die tomorrow. . . like Chris.
Are you ready for eternity? I encourage you, if you haven’t made that commitment for Christ, DO IT NOW. Don’t put it off. You don’t know which day will be your last. Let’s face it: Ten out of ten people die. Jesus could even come before then. He could return at any moment. Maybe today. Tomorrow? Next year?
1 Thessalonians 5:2 For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
Where will you go? ? ?
Please be praying for Chris’s family as they begin the healing process, and that they may come to know Jesus as their personal Savior, if they haven’t already.
In Christ,
Kira
Filed under: Sharing the Gospel, Struggles Tagged: | death, eternity, Gospel, Heaven, Jesus' return, life, Mark Cahill, witness
Oh my goodness! That’s so sad! What a reminder!
B
Yea, this happens to me too and I’ve been awaken by a video on Youtube “A letter from hell”. Plot: a guy never shared the Gospel with his best friend who infortunatly die in a car accident.
And the Christian receive a kind of letter from hell and his friend telling him “Why did you never tell me about Jesus, now I am suffering because of you, etc.”
We all have to share the Gospel if we truly love our friends. I’m trying to do it, most of times people laugh at me, or want to postpone the conversation… Well it’s hard, rarely effective in a place where there are a lot of atheists, but I have to do the job.
Then if the thing does not work and if people think you are pathetic and religious extremist… Keep on praying for them and show the presence of Jesus in your life by your deeds and your gentleness.
So that they finally glorify Him.