Losing loved ones

This is by far one of the toughest experiences anyone could ever go through. To have someone you care about literally slip out of your fingers. It’s right then you begin to consider believing in a fantasy world where all your wishes could come true; and you could wish such person back alive.
As Christians, it’s more comforting to know that you’d see such person again someday; where you can truly say for a fact that he/she was a Christian. Although the Holy book warns us not to judge a person and leave the determination of who will go to heaven or hell to the Almighty himself; knowledge of such person’s lifestyle and activities before death might lead your subconscious to make a conclusion as to the destiny of such person’s soul.
If you strongly feel that the person remained a Christian till death, you allow your faith in the Resurrection comfort you. But what if you don’t? What if you have no basis to believe that such person died a believer? And that he backslid moments away from his death? How does that make you feel? Crushed isn’t it!
No matter how hard you try, you can’t quite shake off the fear that you’ll never see such person again because his soul is lost forever. How do you reconcile yourself to such fact?
Now, imagine how God feels about every soul he ever lost to Satan. God created us all and loves us equally. He desires that everyone be saved; but scarcely does that happen. In fact it seems that more people get lost than saved these days and it just makes me wonder how many times God’s heart gets broken each time someone does stuff to hurt him and eventually gets lost for good.
Are we also adding to God’s heartache? Before Jesus ascended into heaven; he gave us the great commission to go into the world and preach the good news to everyone. But how many of us actually do that? How many of us ever spoke to anyone about Jesus? How many of us have actually encouraged our friends who we know are doing wrong to stop and turn it all over to God? How many of us have judged others, and yet failed to judge our own lives? I’m guilty and so are you!
The number one way to minister to someone is through your lifestyle. If an unbeliever fails to see any difference in the way he lives his life and yours then how will he ever see any need to change ways? Our lives should preach the good news to people. The reason the early Christians got the name “Christians” was because people saw that they were like Christ. Can anyone see Christ in you?
Yes, we have lost loved ones one time or the other but that is nothing compared to what God is going through. He already made the ultimate sacrifice of love for us; now it’s left to us to do the rest and make our own contribution towards reducing the vast number of souls that are lost every day.
You need to find out what God will have you do to spread his word- this is your purpose on earth. Ask him to reveal it to you. Everything we do is a seed which God will water in the heart of the person concerned. However we must try our best to plant those seeds; so that at the end of the day those souls won’t be lost.
If you’ve ever lost someone or know someone who lost someone, then pledge to spread God’s word to ensure those you know are saved, starting with yourself!

© June 6th, 2010.