For twenty-five years of my life I sold life insurance.  It always amazed me how easily people would spend money on car, home, business, and health insurance but would not spend money on life insurance.  Maybe there would be a car accident; maybe a home would be burned down or blown away; maybe a person would have a catastrophic illness but there have only been two people who have never died in the past … Enoch and Elijah.  And then, if you were to do a real hard study of John the Baptist you might come to the conclusion he was Elijah.  It is somewhat unnerving but the fact is, if the Lord tarries, in 100 years all 6.5 billion people living now will all be dead except for a handful.

http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop is a very interesting website).  According to the census bureau site http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock someone dies every 13 seconds.  So what is the problem?  Why are we so afraid to insure against it?  Talk about it?  Face the reality of it?

Death has been a big subject for me the past four and one-half months.  Having suffered a major heart attack this past April 18th, I was face to face with death.  Had there not been a 24 hour on call Cath Team, humanly speaking, I would not be alive to type this eNewsletter.  I lost my mother on August 20th.  During her five day stay in the intensive cardiac care unit I witnessed the process of death.  Having never seen this process or being this close to death personally it has been a real eye opener for me.  Even though I am a Christian, and have been since December 13, 1970, I would be a liar if I said these two incidents did not unnerve me.  They brought me face to face with two things: 1) my mortality as a human.  2.) My immortality as a spirit.  My faith is stronger as a result.

This past week on the way to Baton Rouge I had a near death experience.   I will simply tell you it has changed my life and is still changing it.  My priorities have all changed.  I am not the same person I was.  Things that seemed important last week are not important this week.  Things that I took for granted last week I do not take for granted today.  I think differently and therefore my actions and attitudes are different.

For the past several years I taught men in a rehab center the concept of BEAR.

Belief

Emotions

Actions

Results

Beliefs produce emotions that produce actions that produce results.  If you want true changes in results you must change your beliefs.  You can change your actions for a while which will change the results for a while but ultimately your beliefs will take charge again.  I believe this is why so many addicts relapse (my opinion).

This past weekend, The Lord changed my beliefs.

I have a question for you.  It is a tough one.  It may cause you to break out in a sweat.  It may cause some anxiety.  Nonetheless, here it is … If you knew you were going to die the day after tomorrow what would you change between now and then?  Do you think you would look at things differently?  Would you do anything?  Would you change your relationship with Jesus Christ?  Spend time with anyone?  Write any letters?  Make any phone calls?  Say anything to your mate?  Put anything in order?  Forgive any one?  Mend any fences?  Okay, I fudged … this is a multi-faceted question or one big one.  But honestly … what would you do?

Since death is not an option …