November 20, 2020. by Don Robertson
Round 2. Cancer has struck me again. I was diagnosed with slow-growing prostate cancer in 2016 and underwent high dose radiation treatments that sent it into remission. Follow-up PET and CT scans found no trace of cancer.
In June 2020, however, my doctors discovered that cancer had returned and this time with a vengeance. It is confirmed through an MRI, PET scan, and biopsies that I now have terminal Stage IV cancer that has traveled to the lymph nodes.
Whether it’s COVID or cancer, accidents, or natural causes – life is short! The Bible illustrates the brevity of life with these phrases. Life is:
- Faster than a weaver’s shuttle
- Like a breath or a sigh
- Swifter than a runner
- Like swift ships
- As an eagle swooping on its prey
- As a few days
- Like a fading flower
- Like withering grass
- A shadow that flees
- A handbreadth
- A vapor that…vanishes away
It all points to one thing – life is short!
I have walked through graveyards and every age is represented there from infants to centenarians. We all know we are going to die, we just don’t know when. No wonder the Bible says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” – Psalm 90:12. As we say at Christmas time – Wise men still seek Him!
Whatever the outcome, I have this solid assurance – “…so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” – Philippians 1:20-21.
The very fact that Jesus died for my sins and rose again the third day gives me the freedom to sing this taunt song to death: “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?… But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” – 1 Corinthians 15:55, 57.
I hate to break the news to you – but you are dying, too! The Bible says of man, “He comes forth like a flower and fades away” (Job 14:2). Man’s days are determined by the Lord before there is one of them and God has “appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass” (Job 14:5). We all started using up our allotted days the moment we took our first breath. But do you know with certainty that when you take your last breath you will be with Christ in Heaven for all eternity?
You can know! Jesus offers eternal life to all who will believe in Him.
“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” – Romans 10:9-10.
Isn’t it time that you said, “I will trust in the Lord?”