It is amazing to find people who claim to be believers, who are afraid to die. This is not meant to be a criticism of anyone. We are merely pointing out an observation that these same people who claim to be believers actually do believe in life after death, but still have this fear of death. The unknown has always produced some amount of fear in all of mankind and death is one of those unknown things that we all will have to go through. Not knowing, being unsure of, and having no control over the future tends to bring out a little anxiety in even the best of us. Please do not get us wrong, we are not so naive to suggest that every believer shares in this fear of death for the same reasons. Some are just selfish. They love themselves and the things of this world more then they love God and the things of God. They are not interested in pleasing God but solely interested in pleasing self. They fear death because it would cause them to lose the things that they have come to cherish most in this life: their money, their status, their popularity, and themselves. Even though they claimed to be believers, they have no hope for the future because they be not in Christ.
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul” (Matthew 16:24-26)?
