What Matters Most when you Die?

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Mike Cave

The “right” amount of life insurance, the best policy, maybe a Testamentary Trust for minor beneficiaries, liquidity for estate taxes or to fund a buy-sell for a business, a Will or Living Will, how real estate is titled, probate. These are all things for which we plan.

Yet for the welfare of the deceased, the very instant we die it all becomes meaningless. Like Monopoly money, it all goes back in the box. At that moment the two world “options” are polar extremes unlike any socio-economic disparity ever witnessed on earth. At that point they aren’t “options” at all, but have been sealed for eternity. Infinite disparity and duration; eternally irreversible.

What matters then? Scripture reminds us that for those who die in Christ, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in paradise”. It is appointed to men to die once, and after this comes the judgment.

When I hear of someone dying, I tend to size up the financial provision for survivors pretty quickly, even when not my client. “They probably had a large group term policy (if a major employer), with young kids will get large Social Security benefits, can pay off house…they’ll be OK.”

But in the last few years I’ve watched the heart monitor turn flat for two loved ones in my life. It’s caused me to study carefully what happened at that moment. The most poignant result for me is the contrast of hopelessness with hope. On one hand is portrayed in Dante’s Inferno the gates of Hell above which are engraved these words, “Abandon every hope, you who enter”. On the other hand is I Thess. 4:19, pointing us to the hope of the resurrection for all who “fall asleep” (die) in Christ.

If you have young children and have bought insurance for their temporal provision but have not carefully led them to Christ, my dear brother, your priorities are wrong. Our fallen natures handicap us is so many ways, but few as much as our concept of time, eternity, and the consequences of decisions in time on eternity.

I have an advantage over most in having lost a son last fall. (I haven’t lost him, for I know where he is; rather I have lost communication with him and that temporarily.) It was inevitable, for in Adam all die. But it’s as if my life was put on time-lapse film and I have gotten to see the end I normally would not. Since I now have treasure in heaven, my heart is there to a larger degree than it could ever have been otherwise. That’s where it should be. Col.3:2

The way we think about death and what it moves us to do has consequence, temporally and eternally. Perhaps God will see fit to use this site to enrich you and your family both ways.