Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
D. L. Moody was one of the most effective evangelists in the history of the church. Though he had little in the way of formal education, Moody preached with fervor and the power of the Holy Spirit to vast crowds across America and England, and tens of thousands of people were saved in his meetings. In 1899, Moody was preaching in Kansas City, Missouri, when he became so ill that he could not continue preaching. Taken by train back to his home in Massachusetts, Moody went to Heaven at just sixty-two years of age.
Some years before he had written, “Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all; gone out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body like unto His own glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.”
Unless the Lord returns, every one of us will face death. But as children of God we have no reason for dread or fear because we know what comes next, and that it will be far better than anything we have experienced in this life. At the moment we leave our bodies behind, we will immediately be in the presence of God. The faithfulness of the promises of God give us full assurance so that we can face even death with confidence.
