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A Portal to Consummate Life

D. A. Carson on responding to fellow believers who are facing death:

Well-intentioned, but poorly informed brothers and sisters who try to deflect people from thinking about death, or who hold out the constant hope of healing, keep them so occupied with matters in this world that they have neither the time nor the energy to think about the next world. They succeed only in robbing their loved ones of the enormous comforts of the gospel as they step into eternity.

…For the believer, the time of death becomes far less daunting a factor when seen in the light of eternity. Although death remains an enemy, an outrage, a sign of judgment, a reminder of sin, and a formidable opponent, it is, from another perspective, the portal through which we pass to consummate life. We pass through death, and death dies. And the more a Christian lives in the consciousness of God’s presence here, the easier it is to anticipate the unqualified delight that will be experienced in God’s presence there.

Quoted from the essay Dying Well in Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose & Provision in Suffering, edited by Nancy Guthrie.

I posted another quote from this book last week and I’ll be reviewing it soon.

Thankful Thursday

I had a couple of things I was stewing over this past week. Nothing big, but things I would have talked over with my husband, if he were still here, and we’d have worked out together the best way forward.

In both cases, good solutions were suggested to me out of the blue by people I hardly know, solutions I would not have come up with on my own. I chalk up these needed answers through ordinary means to the providence of God—to “small mercies”—and I thank him for them.

I am thankful that when I am weak (and I’m always weak), then he is strong.

And I’d be remiss is I didn’t put in a thankful word for the beautiful spring weather.

On Thursdays throughout this year, I plan to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving along with Kim at the Upward Call and others. Why don’t you participate by posting your thanksgiving each week, too? It’ll be and encouragement to you and to others, I promise.