Rick Warren's Daily DevotionalSample

Confident About the Future

How long is forever going to last? Forever! Someday your body is going to die, but you aren't! You're going to live forever in one of two places - heaven or hell. They're both real places. You will spend eternity in heaven or hell.

Why should Christians be the most confident people about the future?

"Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:6, 8 NIV)

For Christians, death is a transfer, a promotion. It's on to better things; no more problems. You're not ready to live until you're ready to die. You don't know how to live until you're ready to die. Only a fool would go all through life totally unprepared for something that everybody knows is inevitable.

You're going to die - someday. If you've accepted Christ, then you're going to go to heaven. You'll be released from pain, from sorrow, from suffering, from depression, from fear: "He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good - tears gone, crying gone, pain gone - all the first order of things gone." (Revelation 21:4 MSG)