Standing Before God Part 1
Our impending physical deaths should make us evaluate our hearts before God and our actions toward others
For the last few years, I’ve wondered a great deal about what it will be like to stand before God after life on earth ends.
When I read about fatal car accidents, tour busses crashing, or someone being shot I often wonder how ready were they to enter eternity and stand before God?
It’s a profound issue and one that should make us live in humility.
We get used to our lives and our situation and being caught up in the here and now. I’m sure many think, “Heaven is somewhere out there and it’s a good place and if I’m a good person then that’s where I’ll go when I die.”
How many of us reflect on standing before God?
When I do, that focuses my attention and causes a tremendous feeling of humility.
My concern in many evangelical churches in the U.S. is that we follow celebrity pastors and larger churches especially are pressured into being culturally cool.
“Accepting” Christ isn’t a flippant act.
We’re making a decision that impacts us eternally.
What’s real, what’s permanent
Going to work, buying groceries, and complaining about the cost of gas in California is real. Wanting our kids to win their next game, do well in school, and put dishes in the dishwasher takes effort.
It’s understandable that we put our energies and focus into the every day.
What role does God have in our lives or what role should he have in our lives?
Eternity is a vague concept …
… Unless we have an understanding of his creation, our sin, and his redemption through Christ.
Before Israel crossed the Jordan, Moses cried out, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4,5).
But Israel continually forgot about God as we see throughout the stories of the Old Testament.
Loving God in this way isn’t something I can do on my own will.
In Luke 10:25-28, “An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
The teacher then asks, “Who is my neighbor?” and Christ tells the parable of the good Samaritan in the following verses.
Paul understood eternity and had such a heart toward God that he was passionate about wanting to be with Christ.
“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body” (Philippians 1:21-24).
This topic of standing before God deserves a tremendous amount of attention and numerous verses and many more passages are zipping through my thoughts so I’ll keep writing more on the topic.
My father entered eternity
During this past weekend, I watched my father, age 91, literally take his last breaths. I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with him the past few months and visited him on Saturday when I read Scripture to him and prayed. I was by his side praying and reading the Bible when he passed on Monday.
He was an engineer and a pioneer in America’s space program. In his mid-20s after graduating from Penn State with a bachelor’s and a Master’s in metallurgical engineering he worked on the Vanguard satellite, the country’s first solar-powered satellite launched in 1958.
He worked in the steel industry in research and development and at times took us into the mill on Saturday mornings to watch molten steel being poured into molds.
More importantly, he gave me a copy of the Living Bible (popular in the ‘70s) and urged me to read a chapter a day. He also gave me The Cross and the Switchblade to read during vacation before 7th grade and that became the book that shaped my life.
My parents also encouraged me to be involved in Young Life and that led to my passion for service.
In my early 20s, I believed God was calling me out of my first job in radio news and into something to do with missions and writing. I wasn’t sure.
Nice career planning, right?
I told my parents that I was leaving the small radio station where I worked and was heading to Pasadena to write the Global Prayer Digest magazine at the U.S. Center for World Mission.
They were shocked and maybe saddened because they knew that broadcasting was a passion for me. And they didn’t know what a missionary really was, especially since we were active in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
And yet they let me go and make my own decision without any arguments.
Months after that, my dad told me a story.
There was a man who was well-known in the steel industry and belonged to some of the important country clubs in the area, and my dad looked up to him and sought him out for career advice.
Mr. M and his wife went to dinner with my parents and during their visit my dad told them that I was going to work with a Christian missions organization and was puzzled by my decision and didn’t know what to make of it.
M became quiet and told my dad that his son had wanted to work for a missions organization, but Marv had dissuaded him from it.
Later, his son was working on his car, had it propped up on a jack and was underneath, when it slipped off the support and crushed him.
M encouraged my parents that I was doing the right thing.
I’m grateful that my parents (my mom died in 1999 of cancer) have always been supportive of my faith and family.
Standing before God is not a small thing, and yet we can only do so through Christ.
Be encouraged.
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.
“For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:14-18).
On a Personal Note:
September was a disjointed month for me personally. In addition to writing for a few clients, I also ref soccer and there were extra trainings for the upcoming high school season. And with all the events that were happening like the assassination of Charlie Kirk I took time to think and maybe spent too much time thinking and not enough writing.
But here I am.
Thanks for sharing this. Kinda caught me off guard as it seemed you would have had more time with him. Thinking and praying for you as you grieve. I still grieve at times missing my dad who passed 24 years ago. We're never too old to miss the man who was perhaps the most important person in our life.