What do Christians think about the after life?

One of my post is ranked well for this question. So, I think it is relevant for me to give my views on this, from a personal basis. I notice that a lot of people asked and the replies come from all sectors, the pagans, atheists, Jewish, Muslims and etc. People have this inner curiosity to know what happens to us after we are dead. And if the person lost a loved one, all the more they wish to find out.

I came from a Taoist background. There was once my mother-in-law and her four daughters arranged a seance with my late father-in-law soul. I followed along because I was told that when the person who is purported to be in trance and the soul of the deceased enter him, daughter-in-law like me who didn’t make it to the ‘visit’ will be scolded for being not being filial. I was just married then so I didn’t want to get into the blacklist. Hehehe.

What I observed was utter bullshit. I knew from the start the guy is a conman because some helpers will come and get answer to list of questionnaires and returned to the guy with the details. So, he blab a lot of mumbo-jumbo and acted like the deceased. He reminded my mother-in-law to burn more shoes for him. Doh!

Many decades later, I found that Christians die and go to Heaven. Jesus gave an explanation somewhere in the Bible that when we are in Heaven, there is no relations of the kind we have here. It is like a big burden lifted off from us, isn’t it? It is one big happy family, minus jealousies, disappointments, betrayals….

Marriage at the Resurrection
18Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 19″Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. 20Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. 21The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. 22In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23At the resurrection[a] whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

24Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 26Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’[b]? 27He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”

(Bible verses copied from Biblegateway)

Personally, I think we shouldn’t be too engrossed to dig out the after life of our deceased. I feel the best we can do is to let go and keep on living. There will come a time when we too will die and at that time, I am sure we will have somewhere to go which is what Heaven is. I will not spend my life wondering if my deceased loved one (i.e. my fourth son) is having enough foods, enough shoes or anyone to care for him. For in Christianity, I believe in angels and they will do that for us. It takes faith to have that complete trust and blind belief.

I had written about what God does when a person breath his last breath. I do not see a person having to walk to take the escalator to Heaven. I see God coming down. I can imagine Jesus personally there to lead the soul of the person to Heaven. And if Jesus become whole and complete, minus the holes on His palms and feet, we too would be complete without our cancer or accident scars.

Though I don’t buy the belief of the living having to provide for the deceased by way of burning paper houses and etc, it doesn’t mean that I do not respect the culture of these people. If their action is a comfort to them, then so be it. And though I think we shouldn’t be too engrossed with how our deceased ones are living in the after world, I believe in doing the best we can in this life. Yet, I do not buy this theory of earning merit points for them. If we want to do good, do it for the sake of doing good for the living. Not to do it for the sake of making the dead happier.