Mortality

The apostle Paul did not have a death wish, but he certainly possessed a hopeful view of death and eternity, according to Philippians 1:
21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
22 But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell.
23 For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
24 Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.

We know that when we leave this world, we are ushered into eternity, and Jesus taught that He is preparing a special place for those who have called upon His name.  He doesn't want us to fear death, but there is a definite element of the unknown here - nevertheless, He desires that we are confident about our eternal destiny.  If we know Him, if we have been saved, born again in Christ, we can know that we will spend eternity with Him; that is a source of incredible hope.

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The Bible teaches that our departure from this world means that the believer in Christ enters into
eternity with God, according to 2nd Corinthians 5, which says:
4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.
8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
Smartphone apps are a wonderful invention, and make it simple to navigate the world of information at our fingertips.  And, you can download apps that will provide access to information, that can control your electronic devices, and even remind you about certain things - you would think that the app world is actually trying to do your thinking for you!!

And, there is an app that has been released that reminds you of your mortality.  That's right, it has a rather quirky name - it's called "WeCroak."  An article on The Atlantic website tells you more than you need to know about it.  The author writes:

FIVE TIMES A DAY for the past three months, an app called WeCroak has been telling me I’m going to die. It does not mince words. It surprises me at unpredictable intervals, always with the same blunt message: “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.”

The author, Bianca Bosker, initially downloaded it as a joke, but it - and she - are still ticking. She says that she has "come to embrace WeCroak as the anti-app."  Says it changes how she relates to her phone.  She writes: "As I scroll through Instagram or refresh Twitter, WeCroak interrupts with the sobering reminder that it is not just my attention these other apps are consuming, but chunks of my life."

Residents of Hawaii received a "sobering reminder" of their mortality over the weekend.  You may have heard that an alert was sent out notifying residents of an impending missile attack.  This is certainly a very real threat, in light of the heated rhetoric coming from the nation of North Korea, situated to the north of our 50th state.  Franklin Graham related a spiritual application as the result of this false warning on his Facebook page.  He wrote:

Yesterday Hawaii had a scare. Their emergency alert system sent a message to everyone’s cell phone: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” They thought they had about 20 minutes. A friend of mine in Hawaii said he ran to the window to see everyone running off the golf course, and then he sat in front of the television. I read about another man who got in the bathtub with his family and prayed. Well, a few minutes later, it was revealed that an employee had hit the wrong button and it was a false alarm. What would you do if you only had 20 minutes to live? Would you call on the name of God? Would you ask for forgiveness of your sins? Would you contact your loved ones? Would you drink a Coke? Share in the comments below—If you only had 20 minutes to live, what would you do?

As of this morning, there have been some 13,000 comments in response to that penetrating question.

CBN reported on the alert, Graham's response, and certain comments, which included:

"I'd probably spend the last 20 minutes with family and devotional time with Jesus..."

"If I only had 20 minutes to live, I'd defiantly be praying asking for forgiveness so I can make it in."

Wonder if he meant definitely and his Facebook app autofill took over?  One responder said he'd probably "eat a cheese steak" at his favorite restaurant in Philadelphia.

By the way, the CBN story said that:

In a statement, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says that the false alarm and the delay in a public retraction was "absolutely unacceptable," and that it undermines "public confidence in the alerting system and thus reduce their effectiveness during real emergencies."

The Washington Examiner reports that:

Richard Rapoza, spokesman for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said the worker responsible for sending out the missile alert has now been reassigned to a job that doesn’t have access to the system. The agency is also conducting an investigation into what occurred.

Matters of life and death here, and the perspective that is taught in the Scriptures is quite different than what people who don't know Christ might believe.  There are several takeaways I wanted to call attention to:  From the app story, we can reminded that we will all die.  That is, unless Jesus comes to take us first.  But, we can look forward to a cessation of life on this earth.  The other is related to Franklin's question: if we know we only had 20 minutes to live, what would we do? How would we spend it?

Well, I think we have to make sure that we are ready to leave this earth and that we are certain that we will spend eternity with God in heaven.  And, we can do that before any alarm goes off or our death is imminent.  It is a matter that can be settled - the person who believes in Christ as Lord and Savior has the promise of eternity with Him.  Period.

There are a few other quick points about death - for one thing, I believe that the Bible teaches that if we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord.  And, the same writer, Paul, says that to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  So, we don't have to fear death.

And, one more thing, circling back - everyone is appointed, as Hebrews says, once to die, and then to face judgment.  So, eternal judgment is a certainty; but we can be confident that if we have received Jesus as our Lord, we will stand before God as His saved and redeemed child, with our sins forgiven, right before Almighty God.