dying on Fear of Death

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.

When I was told that I had six months, or perhaps nine, to live, first reaction was naturally of shock -though I also felt liberated, because, as in limited-over cricket, at least one knew the target ...

Gracious God, we confess that we think of Easter as the springtime holiday rather than the mystery holiday, the hope-time holiday, the now-its-up-to-us holiday. We’re more at home with bulbs and bunni...

God of the Ages, Every day we come face to face with our mortality and the pain of this broken world Every day the need is great in body, mind, and spirit Every day brings disappointment  Every day b...

I saw a study that said speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. Number two was death. This means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, yo...

Hope is reliance upon grace in the face of death: the issue is that of receiving life as a gift, not as a reward and not as a punishment; hope is living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently...

Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. When we see those who previously stood firm and...

Ted Williams—often called the greatest hitter in Major League Baseball history—has spent the years since 2002 not in a hall of fame or resting beneath a headstone, but inside an unassuming warehouse n...

There’s a well-shared (though probably apocryphal) story that took place about the morning, the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was having a theological discussion with a few of his friends. One...

In The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her father needed to find a safer place for a Jewish mother and child they had been concealing from the Nazis. A local clergyman cam...

Though Jim was just a little older than Phillip and often assumed the role of leader, they did everything together. They even went to high school and college together. After college they decided to jo...

The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over.

Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....

Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....

“You will be dead, so long as you refuse to die.”

How many modern Christians consider dying to be the worst thing that can happen to them? We pray for safety, healing, and protection, and rightly so. However, do we live in the truth that death has tr...

Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. ...

The story of young Matthew Huffman came across my desk the week I was writing this chapter. He was the six-year-old son of missionaries in Salvador, Brazil. One morning he began to complain of fever. ...

If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral.

Die before you have to die. There is no chance after.

A very old man lay dying in his bed. In death’s doorway, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himsel...

Near the end of his life, the American evangelist Dwight L. Moody made a striking remark: “One day soon, you will hear that I am dead. Do not believe it. I will then be alive as never before.”

And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, th...

Dying is something we mostly shy away from in Western society. But as Christians, we are called to a different way of viewing the life to come. In his inspirational and insightful book, The End of ...

An Irish Catholic priest, returning to his old parish in the warmth of spring, was delighted to spot an elderly man he had long known. “Pat!” he called out cheerfully. “You’re still with us—I’m glad t...

When it comes to life and death, there's no third option.

The deeper we are willing to enter into the death of self, the more shall we know of the mighty power of God, and the perfect blessedness of a perfect trust.

They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

No one here gets out alive.