Are You Afraid Of Dying A Premature Death?

The scripture lets us know in John 7:30 that even though Jesus ruffled the feathers of the religious leaders and they hated him, they couldn’t kill Him before His time! Jesus clarifies that He did not come to earth for his own selfish agenda. He came because the Father sent Him to fulfill His will (John 7:28-29). Obedience to the Father kept Jesus from dying a premature death. Yes they ridiculed Him, yes they hated Him, yes He suffered, but they COULD NOT KILL HIM BEFORE HIS TIME and God’s purpose for His life fulfilled!

What a word for us today when the fear of death has gripped many! It’s easy for us to back away from doing the will of God because we fear death. We don’t have to allow the fear of death to grip us, because like Jesus, if we are walking in obedience to God we will not die prematurely. Additionally, if doing the will of God and acting in complete obedience leads to death, then it was our hour, it was our time to go. The catch to all of this is that because we hate loss, we view most deaths as being premature. This is where we need to have our mind renewed and ask God to give us a spiritual perspective. Jesus died in His early 30s while you have Anna, also a faithful servant of the Lord in Luke 2:33-38 who was still alive at 84.   It’s easy to assume that our number of years here on earth determines if we have died a premature death but that’s not the case in God’s economy.  The question is not about how many years God give us on this earth, but more about what we do with the years given. Have we fulfilled our God given purpose? Is our focus on bringing glory to ourselves and amass as much praise from man as possible. Or, are we like Jesus and focused on using our life to accomplish God’s purpose and bring Him glory?

Let us not abandon God’s plans for our lives because we fear death. Instead, let us pray to walk in full obedience and embrace the fact that God knows when our hour will come. Our job is not to figure out when will die. Our focus should be on obeying the will of God until we breathe our last breath-whenever that may be!

Be Blessed

Anika