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Follow Christ to find life
Brad Butler
Pastor Brad Butler

Recently, an alumnus from my high school set up a Facebook page for us to catch up with each other.

The town where I grew up has changed as much as any area I’ve ever seen. My class had 59 graduates in it. The most-recent graduating class had more than 400 students, and there now are two new schools that overlap the area. I do not have any idea how much the population has increased, but my little hometown no longer exists — at least not the way it was.

I’m not writing to be nostalgic for the good old days. It’s just that in the catching up we have done over the last month, I have discovered that at least seven of my classmates have passed away. That seems like a high number to me. None of us has reached age
57 yet, but more than 10 percent are gone. That’s really hard to comprehend.

It has really hit home for me because two of the seven were my first cousins. Of the four Butlers in the Class of 1977, only two of us are still living.

I am not trying to be morbid, but I have to admit that I think a little more about life and death these days. In the 1970s and ’80s, I was so busy “living” that I had no time to stop and think. When you are in your teens and 20s, you consider yourself immortal. After a while, you realize it is not so.

The Bible speaks to this issue with greater clarity than any other source. It says, “It is appointed unto man once to die.” In other words, the death rate for the living is 100 percent. There are no exceptions. The next phrase to that verse is, “and after that, the judgment.”

We are reminded that we will stand before the Lord one day to give an account of our lives. That sounds frightening — but not so much if you have made preparation. Have you done that?

I do believe there is life after death. And I believe that life is found in Jesus Christ. I hope you know him. If you do, then you are ready for that meeting. I hope to live for many more years. But I’m ready now if that is not the case.

I trust you will be ready, too.

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