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..and from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, Deliver us.

This is the chilling ending to the prayer against conspiracy, rebellion and murder. I think to some extent, the authors of this litany wanted to warn us that the consequence of  rebellion is death, that could come suddenly and without warning. There is no time to patch things up.  No time to make amends, no time to apologize to God or others for the hurts you have caused by your sin. Simply put, if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you are unprepared for death and the hereafter.

There are some professing Christians who live under the heresy that if you die with an unconfessed sin, you are out, too bad for you. You should have followed  our rules and been in church last Wednesday night and not had that wine with dinner. Let me be clear, once you are truly His, nothing the world nor anything you can do will snatch you out of His hands. John 10:25-30. Do not live in that fear.

So how do we stay prepared?  For the last ten days, I have tried to journey through a period of reflection and self examination. The discipline of soul-searching is to lead us to repentance, the most important step of staying prepared for eternity.

Repentance does not always make the past right, it doesn’t always instantly fix our mistakes or change their consequences. However, repentance makes you right, before God, so you can continue to follow Jesus. Moreover, the final chapter, how it all ends, is not all about you.  It is His work that rights the wrongs, heals the hurts and wipes away every tear, even those you may have caused. Repentance re-sets your path to the future, and  if you are following Jesus, your future is secure forever.

You may have a life-long struggle with certain sins. You may fight the urge to take that pill, resurrect that resentment, go to that website, have one more drink, have one more bite at the apple. The cure for some sins is not always easy, but it starts with the discipline of the old “Stop and Turn.”  Put the sin aside, if just for today and turn to Jesus. He is so able to help you take the next step. Next consider applying Romans 12:1-2 to your life:

12:1-2 (The Message) So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

Most Bible translations call for being “a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” I often read this passage to mean that I only gave God my good stuff. Nope, I must put it all on that alter, my sin, my disappointment, my worries, my hurt feelings, my plans, my addictions, my emergencies, my dull duties, my relationships, my panic attacks, my depression, my joy, my guilt, my sorrows, my triumphs, my wins, my losses, everything belongs to Him. Present it all as your offering to Him, several times a day if need be. This is an exercise of repentance and worship.

The result of making your life an offering is that you will be changed into looking more and more like your Savior, and acting like Him too. With that comes peace, and best of all,  you will never die unprepared.

Peace,
Phil Parsons

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From Rodger:

In reading Phil’s thoughts above, I almost immediately had a connection in my mind with Joel 2: 13.  It’s a part of Joel’s call to repentance that’s a favorite of us preachers for ether Ash Wednesday or early on in the Lenten Season.  It flows from the understanding that God’s judgment and repentance is never about punishment;  it’s not the oft used and wrongly emphasized “God’s wrath” that we all had better repent in order to avoid.  No, repentance is always a part of repairing our relationship with God.  When Joel talks about “returning” to God in verse 13, the Hebrew word used is “שׁוּב” (shuwb) – an odd root that has a plethora of potential meanings.  In this context it almost certainly means “TURN AROUND!” (All caps and emphasis consciously intended here.) You are going the wrong way about about to walk over a cliff!  Make a U-turn and do it right, freaking now!!!  It’s urgent, immediate and is more intended for our safety than it is to point out any error on our part or to serve as some kind of spiritual “Gotcha!” moment. In other words, it’s absolutely NOT the causal and obviously insincere warning that Willy Wonka makes to wayward children here:

 Imagine Joel yelling at the top of his lungs – TURN AROUND!  That’s because he’s trying to save those dear to him that are at most a step away from walking off a cliff from which there is no return.  I see much of what Phil’s talking about in terms like this.  It reminds me that God’s not some kind of cosmic sheriff just waiting for us to mess up so he can send us to Hell for all eternity; but that even our need for repentance and confession are all part of God’s care to bring us back into relationship and fellowship with him.

I was tempted – for a few moments – by the “Dying unprepared” part above and Phil’s notion about “the heresy of dying with unconfessed sin”… to maybe dive down the rabbit hole about the process of dying, confessing, repenting, judgment, etc. and wrangle around that  age-old question that’s had the evangelical church tied in knots for centuries:  The old “When is it too late” question:  But that truly is a “rabbit hole” for another day – and pretty much for those who have already made the choice to “take the red pill.”