What will they say?

They say that only good men die and that you're not meant to speak ill of the dead. I wonder why that is; if a person didn't live well then shouldn't we be telling others so that they don't repeat the same mistake? I can understand that we don't want to offend and hurt those who are mourning their loved ones but once person has passed all the opportunities we had to tell them the truth are gone. We can try make ourselves feel better and say lovely things about them or we can speak the truth in love hoping that those present at the funeral will choose to walk differently and choose eternal life that is Jesus Christ.

So you're sitting there thinking, hmmm, valid point but why is she talking about this? Well, I woke up this morning thinking about what songs might they play at my wedding and just how much control I have over the song selections. My mind then moved over to my funeral and what I might tell people in a letter or a will to do at my funeral. Then I thought about what people might say. You know its all too easy to outwardly say and do all the Christian stuff, and people can speak about these at your funeral; "the model Christian" but what goes on in your heart is what God judges. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 16 in the last part of verse 7 "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."  The heart is what we ought to concern ourselves with because that's what God is concerned with. We see this illustrated when Christ teaches about prayer. He says to His disciples: ""And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men..." Matthew 6:5. Our aim shouldn't be just to be seen by men, this is not a bad thing no because Paul tells Timothy to be an example to the believers in speech, purity and conduct, but here Christ is speaking about pretense... We ought to be an example by virtue of becoming like Christ, not just acting, but becoming.

Lord, help me to be obedient to your Word and to become Christ like not only in actions but also in my motives. That I become and not just appear to be a follower of Jesus Christ.