Death Picture

   Beloved, if death was to knock on your door today, how would death take your picture? This may sound as an odd question, but it is one of great truth, and should be thought about often by us. How would you slip into eternity, and what would deaths last picture of you be? Would your last picture be that of simply a good individual that upheld the law, was a great neighbor, a good upright citizen, and even one that would go to church? Or would it be a shot of a rambler, and one that was careless, and lived for the moment? What would the lasting portrait of you be imprinted on the minds of others? How would deaths picture remember you forever? I personally pray that neither of these past two identities are as my death picture. I sure don’t want my life to be remembered as one that lived for the moment. How grievous this picture would be. But also, I would hate to live my life only for my lasting impression to be one that was simply a good man, and nothing more than religious. I want death to take my picture, and leave the lasting impression of nothing but Christ Jesus, as my life. This is the grandest last portrait.

   The other day I had received a call from my mamaw telling me that a older man that we had known for a very long time, had just come to life’s end and moved into eternity. I began to think of his life. I thought of how death took his life and made it as one single picture before my imagination. I could easily describe his life in one word, …religious. Yes he had went to church all of his life, even sang and testified, and walked with the saints, but his life was not one as Christ. He was known to be a very mean man, and one that loved to make money above all else. “How sad” I thought, as I remembered the many times I had seen him personally do things unlike Christ. Beloved, I pray to never leave this impression behind me when my time comes to go.

   After I thought about the picture of death that this poor religious man left behind him, I also remember another dear saint of God that had also just recently passed into eternity to meet God. This saint of God was just a few years younger than the religious man that had died, but there was a very different portrait of this man left on the mind of those around him. This man had move beyond religion, and was a man filled with Christ. Although I never had the opportunity to meet him personally before his passing, his life still speaks volumes. He was ready for deaths picture, because he had sold out to Christ, and his life was not his, but was the life of Christ. Beloved, one man died and very few will miss his life, and one man died and this whole generation was left affected by the life in him. Now the only question is, how will death take your picture?