I am never ready for winter. The days are short, the sun seems so far away and the bitterly cold wind blows. I have a difficult time emerging from under my electric blanket in the morning and loathe wearing long pants and bulky clothing. The dark, dreary days and the bitterly cold wind get harder and harder to tolerate each year. Don’t even mention the “s” word (you know, that white stuff that looks all pretty falling from the sky but makes the roads slick and the floors muddy).
I am definitely a summer girl! I love wearing dresses, seeing the sun shine and feeling the warmth radiate down to my bones. Summer means blue skies, sheets on the clotheslines, watermelon, popsicles, lemonade, flipflops, fireflies, green leaves, bright sunshine and fresh air. Life is good in the summer, and I am happy, happy, happy!
No matter how much I want summer to last forever, winter always comes. I can either prepare for winter or live in denial and get a rude awakening. The signs arrive every year. The grass begins to die, the leaves on the trees start to change color and then fall to the ground, winter clothes appear in the stores and Christmas lights are hung all around town while snowplows and children wait for the first snowflake to fall. Some things, we cannot change.
However, the most important thing we cannot change is the fact that we are not here on earth forever. Our bodies wear out, and eventually our hearts stop beating. For some of us that comes slowly; for others, this comes suddenly and unexpectedly. We don’t like to think about these things, but we must be prepared for the day that our physical bodies die.
You see, as sure as winter is coming, the day that we face our Maker will come as well. We do not know how long we have, but the Bible says in Romans 14:11 “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” Jesus is Lord whether we accept it or not. Those who decide to surrender their lives on earth to Jesus and follow his ways will receive the gift of eternal life with him in heaven. Sadly, those who choose to reject Jesus and his ways during their life on earth, will not be allowed to enter but will be cast into the eternal torture of hell.
I do not say this to judge or condemn. I say this out of love. You see, God is holy, and sin separates us from him. The penalty for sin is death. We have all sinned, and we all deserve death. The good news is that Jesus died on the cross in our place and rose from the dead, conquering sin and death. If we accept His gift of salvation & commit our lives to following Him, our slate is wiped clean. We can stand before God because we have accepted the gift of salvation through Jesus.
Just as God wants no one to perish but all to repent and be saved, I too cannot bear the thought of anyone being separated from God and cast into eternal punishment. Just as we know that winter is coming, we also know that our physical bodies will wear out. Each of us will come face to face with Jesus and each of us will confess him as Lord. If we wait until that day, it will be too late. As we prepare for winter and prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we must also make sure that we and those we love are prepared for the day that we will meet God face-to-face.