What Happens When We Die?
What Happens When We Die?
What happens when we die? This is an important question because eventually, every one of us will face death at some point. Some people say we simply cease to exist. Jesus said in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” Jesus makes it clear there is life after death. Others say we get reincarnated into something or someone else. Hebrews 9:27 emphatically rebuts this by saying, “…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Since we only get one shot at this life, and we know our souls will exist somewhere in eternity, what happens when we die?
According to Hebrews 9:27, when you die, the decision God makes about you in the life to come is based on the decision you made about Jesus in the life you just left behind. If you believed that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that He paid God’s penalty for your sin by sacrificing His life on the cross and that He was buried and rose again on the third day, your soul will go straight to Heaven to be with Him, as Paul described in 2 Corinthians 5:8 when he said, “to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” But if you rejected Jesus and chose not to believe this gospel, your soul will go straight to Hell, where you will await the Great White Throne judgment talked about in Revelation 20:11-15. Don’t believe me? Listen to Jesus as He spoke about Himself in John 3:17-18, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” And it’s as simple as that! Beloved, what will happen when you die?
This is Laine Wilder for Carry the Light Ministries, bringing you Insights From an Elder.
by Laine Wilder
author of “Insights From an Elder” for
Carry the Light Ministries
