Death is not an eventuality that with luck, waits for another day. It is today’s cup from which God now insists you drink. If you think that somehow you can choose today not to carry the deaths of you...
Hebrews 2:15, Psalm 16:9–11, 1 Corinthians 15:51–57 , 1 John 11:1–44 , Daniel 12:2–3, 2 Kings 2:1–12
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...
We live in a death-denying world that seems determined to develop technologies that will enable us to get out of life alive. Yet the more we strive to be free of death the more we are shaped by the de...
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 ...
An ancient story goes like this: A slave travels with his master to Baghdad. Early one morning, while milling through the marketplace, the slave sees Death in human form. Death gives him a threatening...
Romans 8:38-39, John 11:25-26, Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 43:2, Psalm 23:4
As John Preston, the Puritan lay dying, friends asked him if he was afraid of death. “No,” whispered Preston; “I shall change my place, but I shall not change my company.” As if to say: I shall leave ...
In his book, Running Scared, Pychologist Edward Welch illustrates how the fear of an event is often worse than the event itself. To demonstrate this, he provides two examples of people whose lives are...
An atheist professor delighted in tearing down the Christian faith of zealous freshmen. By his own admission, he was arrogant, selfish, and intolerant of anything that didn’t measure up to his standar...
Mark 5:36, Psalm 34:4, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 9:22, Philippians 4:6-7, Job 3:25
Medical literature is replete with case reports of patients dying, not from actual illness, but from believing they were sick, from the fear they were going to die.
John O’Donahue, in his book, Walking in Wonder, shares a story from India that is thousands of years old, but just as relevant today as it was back then. It’s about a man who was forced to spend a nig...
In his book, Running Scared , Pychologist Edward Welch illustrates how the fear of an event is often worse than the event itself. To demonstrate this, he provides two examples of people whose lives...
Luke 24:1-12, Luke 15:11-32, Acts 7:54-60, John 21:15-19, Matthew 25:1-13, Revelation 22:12
Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...
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...
The worst evils of life are those which do not exist except in our imagination. If we had no troubles but real troubles, we should not have a tenth part of our present sorrows. We feel a thousand deat...
… Larry Laudan, a philosopher of science, has spent the last decade studying risk-management. He writes of how we live in a society so fear-driven that we suffer from what he calls risk-lock – a condi...
Isaiah 53:5–9 , Jonah 1:17 – 2:10 , Zechariah 12:10, John 19:31–37 , Luke 24:36–43 , Psalm 16:10
I remember growing up in the ’80s (yes, that dates me) when all kinds of fears and phobias seemed to be in the air—fear of the dark, snakes, scorpions, spiders. Someone in my own close circle was afra...
Luke 23:39-43, Romans 4:18-21, Luke 15:11-32, Lamentations 3:22-24, Romans 8:24-25
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...
Charles Spurgeon related a trip through the Lake District, when a dense fog descended on him and his fellow travelers, “we felt ourselves to be transported into a world of mystery where everything was...
I saw a study that said, the number one fear of the average person is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two! How in the world is that? That means to most people, if you have to go ...
1 Peter 1:3, Luke 24:1-12, Mark 16:1-8, Matthew 28:1-10, John 11:25-26, John 20:1-18, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
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...
Matthew 16:25, Luke 17:33, Proverbs 3:5-6, Jeremiah 29:11, James 1:5
Heavenly Father, our Savior told us, "Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for My sake will gain it." These are hard words. We confess that we oft...
Studying your own failures as well can make them seem less earth-shattering. One researcher suggested in a 2010 article in Nature that people maintain a “CV of failures,” a written list of the things ...
Jeremiah 29:5-7, Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, Matthew 6:34, Colossians 3:23-24, Psalm 46:10
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...
John 16:33, Genesis 50:20, 1 Peter 1:6-7, Psalm 119:71, Isaiah 43:2
Recently I read about an experiment done by psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He came up with a fascinating hypothetical exercise, which went something like this: Participants were handed a summary of a p...
Robert Wuthnow told a story about a man named Jack Casey, who worked as a member of an ambulance rescue squad. When he was a child, Jack had oral surgery - five teeth pulled. The little guy was terrif...
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...
Beloved, I say, let your fears go, lest they make you faint hearted. Stop inspiring fear in those around you and now take your stand in faith. God has been good and He will continue to manifest His go...