“Prepare Yourself Here And Now For The Heavenly Home!”

“Prepare Yourself Here And Now For The Heavenly Home!”
Africans are not comfortable reflecting on death. Death is a taboo subject, but it is part of our existence. It is an inevitable route that every life is bound to ply.
Whatever we are in this life is temporary and transitory. One day you are here and the next day your flesh is food for the worms and manure for the crops.
Yet, death is not annihilation. The longest period of any life span is after death. Life at its best in the present is brief and full of drudgery, but life after death is free from stress and is eternal.
Even though Africans hate to talk about death, they however acknowledge that there is life after death. Some Cameroonian dirges tell the immediate deceased to greet those who had died earlier.
Importantly, the ancestors play an intermediary role between God and the living. In the past when a sacral ruler died, some of the “nchindas” were buried alive together with him so that they would continue to serve him in the other world.
Nevertheless, there was a yearning that life ought to have continued here. This was fulfilled through reincarnation.
What is worthy of note is that majority of religions believe that the way one lives in this life prepares one for the life in the hereafter. A Godfearing and righteous life here attracts a future heavenly bliss, while an evil life here leads to the netherworld.
In Judaism the biblical wiseman summed this up by stating: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth…Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil”(Ecc.12:1&13-14).
*In the new dispensation God in Christ Jesus offers us a new opportunity of living again in eternity through the resurrection life. *We are trapped in this earthly prison called body. But God through Jesus Christ has an eternal home for us which is spiritual. It is a land fairer than this.*
Eternity in the resurrected life is God-ordained. He “has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (II Cor.5:1-5).
The guarantee from the Spirit frees us from the scare of death. The Spirit humbles us to know that all worldliness is transient. The Spirit prepares us for a spiritual resurrection life where there is no marriage or the entanglements of this world. The Spirit enables us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Sunday prayer: Lord thank you for the Spirit who liberates me from the fear of death and guarantees me of what is to come. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!