This week I attended and spoke at the funeral of a friend. When I first met him he was at a low point in his life and had just got back into relationship with God. I was able to help him as he learned to follow Jesus. After I moved to the other end of the country he continued to grow in Christ, but he always remembered with gratitude the help he had in the early days. The minister who led the funeral highlighted my friend’s faith and total conviction that he would go to heaven.
3 weeks earlier our sister-in-law died. She also had a strong conviction that she would go to heaven (and good reason for it). In the last couple of weeks, I’ve visited terminally ill people and those who know for sure they’re going to heaven have great peace.
These conversations have underlined for me what is important in life. It is to live this life well and prepare well for the next life. Jesus is the key to both. Or, more particularly, a relationship with Jesus is the key to living this life well and to being able to expect the best (we call it heaven) in the next.
This is what is important but many people don’t have heaven in their future, nor do they have Jesus in their present, and their lives show it. Jesus has told us he wants us to do something about this – to do what we can to introduce people to Jesus.
Why do we do this?
Is it to keep our own church going by adding more people? We may hope that is a result of all this but in the end that’s Jesus’ job.
Do we do it to get brownie points in heaven; kudos with God? No one gets extra credit for doing what they’re supposed to do anyway. And it’s not about us.
We do it because we care about people. We want them to know Jesus so that they have abundant life now and heaven in their future.
Today is Fathers’ Day. Something about fathers that is very important is that fathers care. Fathers care about their wives, their children, their families and a whole lot of other things. We who know Jesus and enjoy the good life he gives us care that other people don’t have this. we want them to know for sure that they can look forward to heaven and can enjoy the adventure of living with Jesus now. That’s why we want to introduce people to Jesus: because we care.