Everyday you hear about someone who has been killed in an auto accident, house fire or even a commercial airliner crashing. You may know someone who is terminally ill, or a friend that died suddenly of a heart attack. Everyday you can find a tragic loss of life.

Most are not ready to leave this world, however it is inevitable. It is a cold hard fact of life that we must all face. Some know that their time on this earth is short, because of a terminal condition. Many will leave their homes today never to return. Their life ending suddenly. Most people believe that it couldn't happen to them, but it can and it does.

Young soldiers went off to war with expectations of returning to their families, many never returned. Young children go off to school each day, and many of them will never come home. When you leave for work each day you plan on returning home to your loved ones that evening. You don't plan on being a statistic but you could be next!

I was working overtime one evening when I heard the sirens of ambulances and police rushing to the scene of what I thought was an auto accident. Little did I know it was a friend of mine from work that I had talked with earlier in the day. He was forty-six years old and had just died of a massive heart attack while he was stopped at the red light. Thank God! he had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior less than a year ago. His wife and three children survive him.

Another friend of mine was in a church service when his fourteen-year-old son, who was participating in the service, suddenly fell to floor. He died also from a massive heart attack. He had no history of heart disease. He was a young healthy looking teenager who loved serving his Lord. They rushed him to the hospital, which was just a couple of blocks away. But he had already expired. My friend would later tell me he held his son in his arms as he passed from life into eternity.

My uncle who was retired seemed to be in pretty good health. He and his wife were watching television one evening, when he turned and looked at his wife and said, "I can't help you anymore." The doctors told her he was dead by the time his head came to rest on the back of the couch. He also had died of a massive heart attack. But he had his heart in the right place. He knew and loved the Lord.

My sister's best friend went into the hospital for a routine operation. She never left the operating room. She would bleed to death on the operating table. The doctors and her fellow nurses did everything humanly possible to save her but she had a date with eternity. This young Christian lady went home to be with the Lord. Another acquaintance, a young couple, had just given birth to a son but there was a problem. The baby boy had severely under developed lungs. The baby was airlifted to a children's hospital in another part of the state. The mother remained behind to recover from giving birth. Two days latter the father returned home to give his wife the bad news, their son had died.

A mother, a wife of fifty-one years, a grandmother all the same person, lying in a hospital bed dying from terminal cancer. She took morphine to kill the pain but there was no relief. The bed she was in allowed her cancer riddled body to lay on a cushion of air, as she could not lie in a regular bed. She was unable to turn over for fear that her bones would break. She had taken all the radiation treatments and chemotherapy her body could stand. I'll never forget watching her take her last breath of life and pass into eternity. Only now was her pain gone. She is with the Lord now. Our pain of missing her had just begun.

A young father, mother, and their two very small children were out for weekend's ride on their motorcycle. Suddenly a car pulls into their path. Their bodies thrown from the wreckage and scattered onto the highway. In just a split second of time they were all in eternity.

If you knew this was the day you were going to die, what would you do? Would you do something in life that you had always wanted to do? Would you spend your time with family or friends? Or would you be reading the Bible and talking to God? There are some people that know they are going to die, yet they still reject the saving grace of Jesus. Just look at the thieves that were dying on their cross with Jesus. In Luke 23:39-40, And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him saying, "If thou be Christ save thyself and us." But the other answering rebuked him saying, "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?" The two criminals that hung on their crosses next to Jesus, both realized their fate, and their time on this earth was short. One would continue to reject the saving grace of Jesus but the other one said to Jesus in Luke 23:42, "Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."

This man realized and believed that Jesus was his only hope for life after death. In Luke 23:43 Jesus said, "truly I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise." One accepted him the other rejected. Death is not the end of life for the Christian. It's just the beginning of life everlasting.

Christ came to this earth to pay the price for man's sins. He wants to forgive you and he will. But you have to ask. You have to accept him and you have to believe and trust in him. In Romans 10:9-10, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Hell will be full of people that meant to get saved. The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. The Bible tell us in Philippians 2:10-11,"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

You might ask, "can I be saved on my death bed?" Just look at the thief on the cross and the answer is yes. But the question is why put it off? You are not guaranteed the next heart beat. Jesus said in 2nd Corinthians 6:2, "I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Down through the ages death has been no respecter of persons. Everyone is subject to death the young, old, and middle age. I am not trying to scare you. These are just hard facts of life why wait to accept him?

There is no other hope or way to get to Heaven. In John 14:6 Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. It is my prayer today that you have received Christ as you Savior. If you have not I pray that you will before it is everlasting too late. May God bless you and keep you.

Inspired by: My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him I give all the Glory and Praise. By: G.L.F. Ephesians 2:8-9