All have a meeting with death.

What Happens When You Die?" This is an important question because death is something you will eventually face. And death is no respecter of persons. It strikes the old and the young, the sick and the healthy, the poor and the rich, the good and the bad.

When your time is up, it’s up. Death can be postponed, but never eliminated. The fact of the matter is, someday you will die, and those you love will die, and nothing can change this solemn fact.  All have a meeting with death. So what happens when you die?

*Here is what WILL NOT happen when you die.

-Death is NOT the end of existence. The Bible says . . . (Gen. 25:8). This implies an existence after death. So death is NOT the end of existence.

-You will NOT be "reincarnated" into something or someone else. In fact, reincarnation is nothing more than a fairy tale. The Bible says . . . (Heb. 9:27). You get just one run in life and that’s it.

-You will NOT have a "second chance" after death. If you say "No" to Jesus in this life, then you’ll NEVER be given another chance in the life to come. The Bible says . . . (Heb. 9:27). In other words, you get one run at life and then you face judgment from God after you die. The only opportunity you will ever have to get right with God is the opportunity God gives you in this life. There is NO second chance after death.

*What WILL happen when you die?

When you die your body and soul will separate. Your body will remain here on earth where you family and friends will bury it and "lay it to rest." But your soul begins The Next Existence and begins its Eternal Continuation depending on whether you are saved or lost.

If  saved, or you’ve accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord and have a personal relationship with God, then your soul will go straight to Heaven to be with Jesus (Luke 23:43, 2 Cor. 5:8).

But that’s not the whole story. The souls of departed believers will wait in Heaven with Jesus until the Second Coming. They will return with Jesus and be reunited with their resurrected bodies (1 Thess. 4:14, 16). I Cor. 15:51-55 adds that your resurrected body will be "imperishable." That is, your new body will be perfect in every way. Your resurrected body will never wear out, never suffer injury, never get sick, never grow old, and never die. It will be imperishable.

But what about the unbeliever? What about those who haven’t experienced the love and forgiveness which God makes available through the cross?

If a person is lost, that is, He (or she) hasn’t accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord, and doesn’t have a personal relationship with God, then their soul will go straight to Hell where they will be separated from Jesus and those that will be in everlasting paradise.

"Hell" translated in the Bible.

1. Tartarus - which is where the most vile and wicked demons are imprisoned (2 Peter 2:4).

2. Hades- which is where a lost person’s soul is sent when they pass from this life (Luke 16:22-24) (note that the Rich Man was alert, in agony, and all alone). Hades is like a temporary holding cell in which criminals are held until they are sentenced. The Bible tells you that Hades will be emptied out just before the Great White Throne Judgement (Rev. 20:13). The lost of the earth will be judged and sentenced to . . .

3. Gehenna - this is the final place of punishment for those who never experienced the love and forgiveness of God made available through the cross. It is a terrible, terrible, fate for sinners.

You will meet death, face to face, some day and you need to be ready. Don’t take one single day for granted.

James 4:14 reminds you . . . . Life is a precious, precious gift. So don’t waste one single day. If you’re holding any grudges, let them go. If you’re living in sin, stop doing what’s wrong and start doing what’s right. If you’re not as close to Jesus as you ought to be, then get as close to Him as you possibly can. Life is too short to waste. Don’t waste it on foolishness, selfishness, or sinful living. Get as close as you can to Jesus and you will enjoy life and fulfill your purpose for being here.

Do these things and you will be ready when you meet death, face to face.

You become what you think

The Law of Concentration states that whatever you dwell upon grows in your life experience. Whatever you think about on a continual basis becomes a part of you.
You become what you think, and the more you dwell on something, the more you have of it in your life.

The Law of Substitution states that your conscience mind can only hold one thought at a time. It makes no difference to your mind whether the thought is "negative" or "positive," it can only hold one at a time. However, you can choose to substitute "negative" thoughts with "positive" thoughts, thus changing your mental state of being.

The Lord understood these principles when He inserted a couple of scriptures into the Bible: Proverbs 23:7a, "For as you think in your heart, so you are."

Isaiah 26:3, "Thou wilt keep them in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because they trust in thee."

You are what you are because of what you have allowed yourself to concentrate on!
If you find yourself crabby, miserable, negative person that nobody likes to be around . . . guess what?  You’re that way because you have allowed yourself to feast on a steady diet of crabby, miserable, negative thoughts.

If you bake a cake and it doesn’t turn out like you want, you can blame the oven all day long . . . but that won’t change the outcome of your next cake. If you want to change the outcome of the next cake . . . change the recipe!

If you find that you’re not the person you want to be, you can blame your circumstances all day long, but that will never change anything. If you want to change . . . change the recipe of your life!

Try substituting negative thoughts with positive ones. And do you know what? . . .
If you’ll concentrate on what’s right in your life instead of what is wrong . . . what’s good instead of what’s bad . . . what’s sweet instead of what’s bitter . . . you’ll find that you’re a totally different person . . . and the only thing that changed . . . was you!

Happiness comes when you stop wailing about the troubles you have, and offer thanks for all the troubles you don’t have.

It’s exciting to realize that you can hold the thoughts and feelings and purposes of God’s very own heart in your heart? It’s thrilling to know the Creator of heaven and earth wants to be one spirit with you and transmit His thoughts to your mind?

First Corinthians 6:17 says that when you were joined to the Lord you became one spirit with Him. He came into union with you so that He can talk to you heart to heart. God wants you in this harmony with Him so that His thoughts can become your actions.

He wants you to walk so closely with Him that you never lack power to overcome the evil of this world. He wants you to be so in tune with His Spirit that you are able to feel His heart of compassion toward those around you who are hurting or bowed down with sickness and pain.

He wants you to consent to become one with Him, just as He has committed to be one with you, so He can reach out through your hands and fulfill His purposes in the earth.

Make a fresh commitment today to walk in union with your God. Give your attention to His Spirit in your inner person. Determine to yield to His voice and not to the voices of the world or the flesh! Determine to yield to His fresh leadership of your life, and not to the traditions of people.

Ask yourself: What voice am I listening to in times of crisis or decision making?
Allow the mind of Christ to flow through you!

By faith you can have your mind renewed if you will begin to read the Word of God daily and to the best of your understand and ability, begin to apply that part of it that applies to you, in your daily responses to life.

Romans 12:1-4
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.
2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
This is a written directive of God’s will.
2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Now then, since you know what God wants and how he wants you to begin.

It is your decision. Will you continue to use the same old recipes which have not worked? Try God’s new recipes- they have worked in countless millions of lives who became serious about their situation, and decided to let God help.

Focus your efforts on rejoicing.

Use examples of nature to cause you to consider the genius of God’s role throughout creation. You are supposed to love and fear God “actually living it out is challenging. It’s tough, and you’ve often take what God has given you for granted and “forget that you already have everything you need in Him and Instead of seeing your purpose as to serve God, you “live instead as though God is created for you, to do your bidding, to bless you, and to take care of your loved ones.”

Focus on how you can be serving God. Your life really is a vapor, a short span of time that you should be using to serve God and yet you still view life’s daily worries as important. Although being born in this world it’s human and normal to do so, worry is not really something supported in scripture; rejoicing is what you should be desiring to do. In Phil 4:4 it says “rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” it doesn’t end with “unless you’re doing something really important.” When you replace God with worrying you “convey the belief that you think the circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice. In other words, that you have a “right” to disobey God because of the magnitude of your responsibilities.” It seems like a Good point to focus in on all your responsibilities; it’s an easy sin to fall in to. But Focus your efforts on rejoicing, when you do your worries become smaller in your mind you’ll learn more and more that essentially God is in control anyways.

 “The Son of God was born among the people whom God still somehow loves. While in this world, the Son taught His followers what true love looks like. Then the Son of God died and was resurrected and went back to be with God.”

The emphasis in your life is to be “obsessive” living for Jesus. This is offensive to many people in the world as it’s much easier to not be obsessed with Jesus. Don’t forget that, your “part is to bring God glory” and the point of your life “for others to look at you and your life points to Jesus.” Period. You can do this in a number of ways. If you are person that happens to be blessed with a lot of material possessions, “God has given you this good stuff so that you can show the world a person who enjoys blessings, but who is still totally obsessed with God.” Having stuff is not a sin, but refusing to share what you have (selfishly hoarding it) IS.

Living obsessively for God involves taking risks that many are afraid to take. Don’t stop taking risks and be ruled by your fears of what could happen?” Some of the fear of sharing your possessions comes out of a fear of what might happen. “Sadly, many people die while living selfishly.”

Shine your light. LET THE WHOLE WORLD SEE. LIVE IT for the Glory of the Risen KING.

Whatever has control of your mind has control of your soul

Do you know that you are a part of Christ and you have been called out of the darkness and have been commissioned to open the eyes of those that the god of this world has blinded, your commissioned to be an unstoppable force that changes those around you, to preach the gospel that is dedicated to leading souls to glory. Therefore as a part of Christ you must possess a certain character in order to effectively carry out what God had in mind for you. You are a part of “The Church in the World”. The first thing you must understand is it’s the church “IN” the world and not “OF” look at what this actually means.

EXAMPLE: In your home you have electricity. The electricity is in your house, but it is not of the house. It is a different entity from the house and the source of its power is from outside of the house, but because of its character it effects what is done in the house. That is how you are in the world that is how it is to be and is what God had in mind for you. You are in the world, but not of the world, you’re a different entity from the world, but because of (The Holy Spirit Living in You) the spirit of God affects the world and what is done in it.

WATCH THIS: The world spoken of here is not what you think of as the earth. It is not just the dirt which consists of many elements and minerals. The world is the influential principalities and powers which govern the mental capacity of mankind.

Understand whoever or whatever has control of your mind has control of your soul. That is why the Bible says in Eph 6:12 “For you wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]”. These principalities, power, rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness are the influential worldly characteristics that try to control your mind and are capable of controlling your soul.

The Holy Spirit is in you and you are in the world, your apart of the influential Power that is to be EFFECTIVE in the world. It is the power to bring about a Christ like result. The way you are effective in the world is by your character. Remember character is that distinguishing trait that separates you from everyone else. You “IN” the world must possess certain Christ like character traits in order to be effective. You must be a light in the world. The purpose of light is to illuminate Jesus. The Bible says in Phil 2:15 “That you are to be blameless and harmless, a child of Gods, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse world, among whom you shine as a light in the world”. Therefore, you in the world must be a light. So it doesn’t matter how spectacular you are building yourself up, if the people around you are not being lights shining in this dark world then you are not being effective and therefore you are not operating in what God had in mind for you.

You must stand in the world against what the devil is trying to do. Understand that the devil wants control of your mind. You must possess the Christ like character to stand against the things he is doing to try to get control of your mind.

God allows you to go through periods of spiritual drought

Everything in your life can be going great and then all of a sudden something happens, and it’s as if someone pulled the rug out from underneath you.

Maybe you have a wreck on the way to work one day and the guy who hit you doesn’t have insurance and you end up having to pay most of the repair bill out of your own pocket.  Maybe one of your kids gets hurt playing soccer and you have some unexpected doctor’s bills to pay. Or maybe you go to the doctor for a routine checkup and when the doctor calls you back with the results of your tests he informs you that you have cancer.

When something like that happens it usually catches you off guard and often knocks the breath out of you. But how you respond in that situation is very important. You can either respond by blaming God, which is what the prophet Jonah did when the worm ate the vine that was providing him shade. Or you can respond in faith, like Elijah did and do whatever the Lord tells you to do next.

Sometimes God allows things to happen in your life to test your faith, which is exactly what He did when He allowed the brook to dry up. Suddenly, Elijah had a decision to make.

He could either complain about it like the Israelites had done when they were wandering around in the wilderness. Or He could be patient, and put His faith and trust in God, and see what God had in store for him next. Fortunately, Elijah put his faith in God. Here is what happened next. Look at Kings 16:-17:

Then the word of the Lord came to him: "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food."

God had another plan, another test and another mission for Elijah. He told him to go to Zarephath of Sidon, which was coastal town located between Tyre and Sidon. To make the decision even more difficult to make it was about a 100-mile walk from the wilderness to the town of Zarephath. To make matters worse it wasn’t in Israel and was ruled by none other than King Ahab’s father-in-law. To top it all off God told Elijah to put his life in the hands of a poor widow woman.

Elijah again responded in faith, trusting that God would do what He said He would do, even though it didn’t really make sense. Especially after he met the woman and discovered that she had more than her share of problems.

Yet because He obeyed, despite not fully understanding, God not only provided for His needs but also for the Widow and her son.

(1) the lessons you can learn from Elijah is to always put your faith and trust in the Lord and do what He tells you to do.
(2) A second lesson you can learn is that God will sometimes allow you to go through periods of spiritual drought to test you and help you to mature. He may also use spiritual droughts to prepare you for the next assignment that He has for you.

Elijah is best known for defeating the 450 Prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah on Mt. Carmel. But He would never have been spiritually mature enough for that assignment had he not lived through a few spiritual droughts. So if you find yourself in a spiritual drought this today don’t give up. Don’t throw in the towel. Remain faithful and wait on God to show you what to do next. Make sure you understand that Spiritual droughts are temporary, they do not last forever.

(1) Continue to read and hold onto the Promises of God found in the Bible.
Read it, study it, and allow God to minister to you through His Word.
Memorize certain Scripture verses and Meditate on them. Allow the Word of God to feed you and be your source of strength even in the midst of the spiritual drought that you are facing.

(2) Next, don’t forget to pray, and when you have prayed, go back and pray some more.
Don’t be afraid to be honest with God about how you feel. He’s a big God, he can handle it, if you’re angry at him let him know it. If you’re disappointed, tell Him. If you can’t express yourself verbally write it down.

(3) Finally, when you find yourself in a spiritual drought or facing a problem that you can’t seem to find the solution to, don’t try to get through it on your own. Instead turn to your brothers and sisters in Christ, and let them help you through it, after all that is one of the reasons that you as a brother or sister in Christ are here.