Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
About 150,000 people die every day, adding up to sixty million deaths per year. Most of us rarely consider these global numbers, but accidents, disease, and aging bodies remind us that every generation from Adam and Eve onward has experienced the end of this life and will continue to do so, until the day of the return of our Lord. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that God has appointed our death as the moment of transition to giving account to Him: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
Unless the Lord returns first, the specific day for our death is steadily approaching. We do not know when it will be. Many assume and wish it to be distant. God’s Word, though, tells us that we should live with the awareness that it may not be far away. The rich fool said, “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry,’” not realizing that God had decreed, “This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:19–20). Even if death is decades away, that is not long, as any elderly person will tell you. A realistic, sober awareness of coming death is good. No doubt this is a reason that the Preacher of Ecclesiastes tells us that it is “better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting” (Eccl. 7:2), as much as we enjoy the latter. For the Christian, a healthy awareness of our death gives perspective on the present, as well as humble and hopeful anticipation for the future. Realizing that the day of our death is coming, how can we meaningfully prepare for it?
First, preparing for our death requires taking God’s Word to heart. This starts by coming to our Lord in faith, confessing our sin to Him so that we enter eternal life in communion with the triune God through Christ. Steady, ordinary use of the means of grace is what our Lord delights to use to nourish and strengthen us in life with Him that is eternal. Walking through life in communion with the living God prepares us for both the easy and hard things that He will call us through on the way to death. Walking close to Him also prepares us for the far greater reality of entering His glorious presence the moment that we do die. When we become distracted spiritually, stagnating or backsliding in the Christian life, we put ourselves on a trajectory of being poorly prepared for navigating anything well, whether prosperity, adversity, or the day of our death. Do you want to be ready for your death? Ask the Lord to increase your faith, giving you increased spiritual sight of who He is and the wondrous works He has done and is doing. Ask Him to deepen your repentance and increase your loving, thankful communion with Him.
Living in communion with God also helps address our fear of death. Most people fear death. Non-Christians do because even a suppressed conscience whispers the reality of the holiness of God; they continue in unrepentant sin against the reality of their infinite Creator and Sustainer. Many Christians also fear death, both because we have greater awareness of our own sin and the holiness of our God and because death itself is unknown to us. We have never died nor experienced what comes afterward, so we fear the final trial of death, the last enemy. Yet our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, has conquered sin and death ahead of us and for us. He is infinitely stronger and greater than our sins, fears, and frailty. While we tremble at the thought of holy judgment, we have God’s sure promise that Christ is our “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). We can safely entrust ourselves to Him. His promise is that “whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). By our Lord’s grace, we can grow in echoing the Apostle Paul: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. . . . To depart and be with Christ . . . is far better” (Phil. 1:21–23). Countless Christians have safely passed through death into His presence ahead of us.
A second, related aspect of preparing for death by taking God’s Word to heart is stewarding the spiritual riches, life, gifts, skills, responsibilities, and opportunities that the Lord gives us. Every Christian has sad regrets that can find their answer only in Christ Jesus, their all-sufficient Savior, but no Christian on the day of his death will regret the times he spent in communion with God. You will not regret your growth in sanctification. You will not regret striving for increasing victories over old patterns of sin. You will not regret the time that you chose to spend in spiritually nourishing books and teaching. You will not regret choosing to spend more time listening to the good news of the kingdom. You will not regret time spent loving your husband or wife, children, friends, and neighbors by listening, talking, and encouraging them in the Lord. You will not regret time spent in prayer, the Word, and worship. You will not regret giving away money to Christ’s work in the world. You will not regret stretching yourself to share the gospel with the lost. You will not regret time spent with lonely, elderly saints. Pursuing the things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent (Phil. 4:8), looking to Jesus (Heb. 12:1–2), brings great goodness now and prepares us well for our deaths.
A third area of preparation involves wise practical planning with our loved ones, along with planning with the local church. Some congregations have new members fill out a brief form listing favorite Scripture passages, psalms, and hymns in preparation for their funerals so that elders and deacons can be better prepared in coming alongside a grieving family. This provides opportunity to help all members prepare for death, including those who do not have healthy family ties outside the spiritual family of the church. For husbands, wives, and families, some prayerful conversation about at least the contours of desired care in old age, and illnesses leading to death, is spiritually and practically beneficial. Once children reach the age of eighteen, visiting a lawyer to create a set of disability and estate plan documents is an act of good stewardship and wise love for those around us—as it is for any adult without established plans. This process will name personal representatives, guardians, trustees, and beneficiaries in advance, saving others from probate courts with significant, needless work and time-consuming difficulties. It is wise to append a list of bank accounts, retirement and investment accounts, mortgage and loan information, and utility accounts, as well as technology (computers, phones, etc.), social media, and other online account information, to your storage of estate documents. Making sure that these things are done and updating them as needed stewards the care of your life and death and the time, emotion, and energy needed by others to navigate your affairs in the time leading to and after your death.
Finally, preparing well for death includes helping others prepare for death. The center of this is in our glad mutual encouragement to come and worship the Lord together, “not neglecting to meet together . . . but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:25). We hear the Lord Himself speak to us by His Word together. We pray together, including for one another. Worshiping the Lord together, we sing, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps. 23:4). We participate in the sacraments together, receiving God’s sure promises in communion with Christ. Talking together in Christian fellowship about life, death, and the things to come—heaven, hell, the consummation of all things, and the new creation—helps us all place our coming deaths in the context that our Lord desires for us. Ministering His love and wisdom to each other helps us see why “the death of his saints” is “precious in the sight of the Lord” (Ps. 116:15). As we do, we are strengthened with anticipation for the coming day when He “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore,” because “God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3–4).