Marc Shotts

Someday you will be dead. This is not a morbid thought, but a reminder of the inevitability of death. God said "inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27).

Someday you will be dead. People will go through your stuff, keeping a few memorable items but mostly selling or throwing away. Everything you collected in life will no longer be yours but belong to someone else. The Preacher was obviously wealthy, but he acknowledged: "I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity." (Ecc. 2:18-19)

Someday you will be dead. The career you had and all the accomplishments, medals won, and degrees earned won't matter. James reminds us "Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." (Jas. 4:13-14)

Someday you will be dead. The politics and policies of the nation you cared so much about will instantly cease to be a concern. Who is president, what policies are in place, even the fact of your citizenship in a particular nation will all cease to matter. The apostle Paul had been talking about those who focus on earthy things, but Christians are to be different and first of all "our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:20).

Someday you will be dead. Knowing this fact should cause us to live differently. Jesus told a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?' So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." (Lk. 12:16-21)

Someday you will be dead. Jesus said "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" (Mk. 8:36). Answer the question.

Someday you will be dead…