It’s relatively easy to believe in eternal life, when you’re young, with likely a good many years to go on the planet. Fair enough. But how strongly will you believe, when the curtain on this life begins to close?

His name was John. He’d lived a life of incredible service in so many different ways. It was an amazing life grounded in unshakable faith in Jesus. He had a faithfully devoted wife and two sons both of whom had followed in his footsteps of service.

I visited him one afternoon in palliative care. He was asleep in the chair in the corner of his room and despite talking loudly to him and gently shaking his shoulder, I couldn’t rouse him. So I left the chocolates on his bed and wrote a short note on the little blackboard he had lying there.

But as I looked at him, I rather doubted that he’d ever eat the chocolates. Even I could see he didn’t have long to go and, as things turned out, he didn’t. Physically, he was a shell of his former self, breathing but only just. And yet as I gazed upon my old friend for a few moments that felt like an eternity, I realised that within his failing shell lay a roaring lion of great faith. I knew in that moment, that he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he was headed for life eternal in the Presence of His Saviour.

John 11:25,26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection. I am life. Everyone who believes in me will have life, even if they die. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never really die. Martha, do you believe this?”

It turned out that Martha did believe. So did my old friend John. The question is, do you?

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.