Death is both a mystery and a fact of life. Having lost loved ones, most of us are no stranger to it, the reality of it, at the very least. Death is one of the few once in a lifetime experiences, perhaps the only experience impossible to live to tell. So, the tale of one’s death is entrusted to the living.
Have we given proper thought, then, about the life we, sooner or later, will leave behind? Will we be remembered? If so, how? If not, why? Do the remains of our death accurately depict a life well led? Why go to great lengths, make great strides, hoping either matters? How is being remembered any good to the dead?
Is it not man’s all to keep his fear in God and His commandments to the end? God through Paul reminds us that our present lives and bodies are His temple, temporary tangible dwelling places for His Holy Spirit. Knowing this alone, are we not compelled to preserve our bodies and souls in securing God’s constant abidance and be used as living testaments of God?
Is this not also the conclusion of the matter?
“For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” – Romans 14: 7-8
As death inconspicuously looms over matters of this life, let us never overlook or lose sight, but always look to matters beyond. God-willing, our life and death point the living to glorious skies.