Where Will You Spend Eternity?

“For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord -- for we walk by faith, not by sight -- we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”
2 Corinthians 5:1-8

He was born in a rural southern community in 1890. He worked as a farmer and carpenter, living in a house that was without electricity or plumbing for many years. He suffered a stroke while plowing behind a mule. Partially paralyzed for several years, he died quietly in 1963. He is buried in a small cemetery in the far corner of a pasture.

Driving down a crowded interstate late at night, he nodded off. He would not awaken again. His care hit an embankment. At age seventeen, his dreams came to an abrupt end.

Death happens in many ways and at many ages, but it always happens. Is that the end for the farmer who never traveled more than a few miles from his home, for the teenage who never got his high school diploma? Is it the somber conclusion of a man?

Thankfully and wondrously, no. Physical death is not final. Consciousness does not cease in the casket. But we won’t have a second or third chance. We won’t come back as a cantaloupe, a cow, or a comedian. The Bible says we die once (Hebrews 9:27). We will then live forever in heaven with God, or in hell away from God (Luke 16:19-26). Do you know where you will spend eternity?