If you have your wits about you, are reasonably healthy and balanced, most people would say that life is good and death is bad. Death is feared and to be avoided. God has put an impulse in us to want to stay alive. Yet in Philippians 1:21-26 Paul paints a very different picture.

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil.1:21) Paul goes on in the next several verses to explain the win/win scenario – to live is Christ, serving Christ, blessing others, leading others to grow deeper in Christ, etc. This is a big win, and what Paul pours his life into. However, for him personally there is no doubt that to die and be with Christ is a BIG gain. To be set free from sin and to be in the presence of the Lord, what can compare with that? So either way Paul has peace, joy and hope, as he sits in prison uncertain of his future yet confident in the Lord. However, it does appear that he knows he will remain on earth for a time (1:25) so he can continue to bless others. As a side point, when a believer dies, he/she goes immediately to be with the Lord, according to 1:23 (no soul sleep, purgatory, reincarnation, etc.)

So what is our view of life and death? Are we living this life for Christ, for blessing others and leading them closer to Jesus, filled with joy at the opportunity to serve Christ by ministering to people? How do we view death? Is it a consuming fear, or is what is on the other side so incomparably glorious that we eagerly long for the time when the Lord calls us home? Certainly the Lord is in control of the timing of these matters, but I hope for you and me, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Pressing on, Eric