If you are going on a journey, you prepare.
In getting ready to visit my niece and her husband a plane ride away, I got into preparation mode.
Flight? Check.
Ground transportation? Check.
Suitcase packed? Check.
Clean house before I leave? Check.
Personal papers laid out where they can be easily found? Check.
….Wait, what? “Personal papers?”
My niece wanted to know what that last “check” was all about. I told her it was about having my personal papers so they could be easily found in case I didn’t come home.
There was a pause. She says, “What a morbid yet considerate way to live.” I told her that when mom and I went on trips we each had manila envelopes that we left with our necessary information. I wouldn’t want to leave that for everybody else to have to figure out. She says, “Once again — considerate!”
It just seems to me that leaving instructions to prepare our family and friends is the right thing to do.
There is another way — the best way — we should prepare our family and friends for possible unforeseen events.
Prepare them for eternity.
Show them Christ so visibly that they will hunger for Him, and be fed. Lead them to the Living Water, so they will not thirst. Invite them into the family of God, so they will not be strangers. Live your life so that they desire the clothes of righteousness, and will not face eternity naked. And continue to go to them as long as they are trapped in the prison of sin.
Because in reality, when you prepare your family and friends, when you love them and serve them, you are also loving and serving Christ.
Because let’s also face it, we will all face that journey, and we all need to prepare.
“33 and he will set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on [his] left. 34 Then shall the King say to those on his right hand, Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from [the] world’s foundation: 35 for I hungered, and ye gave me to eat; I thirsted, and ye gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; 36 naked, and ye clothed me; I was ill, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came to me. 37 Then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungering, and nourished thee; or thirsting, and gave thee to drink? 38 and when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in; or naked, and clothed thee? 39 and when saw we thee ill, or in prison, and came to thee? 40 And the King answering shall say to them, Verily, I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.” Matthew 25:33-40 (Darby Translation)
Love and prepare your family and friends for eternity as Christ loved and prepared you.
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What is your relationship to the all-knowing God of the universe? Do you know the peace that can come only from an intimate relationship with Jesus? You can know Him. Jesus Christ—God’s Son, born into human flesh, sinless, crucified and giving His life freely, buried, arisen on the third day—will come into your life and change the outcome of your eternity. You just have to be willing to believe and accept His truth. In addition, here is an excellent page that can give you additional information on peace with God: PeaceWithGod.net.
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