Three Weeks to Live

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 5
"The doctor says I have only three weeks to live," said a tall, pale young woman about twenty years of age.
"I suppose you are thinking a great deal of where you are going after death?" said her visitor.
"Oh, no! I try to banish that thought from my mind. I have enjoyed my pleasures, and it's no use my thinking of anything else now. Besides, no less than five ministers have been here to see me.
"Every one of them has told me that I must make myself good to be fit for heaven. I can't do that, and I don't even want to try! Anyway, I have only three weeks to live, and that is far too short a time to do what they tell me is necessary to fit me for heaven. So why should I make myself unhappy with the thought of it now?"
"My dear young lady, I have only fifteen minutes before I must leave. But I assure you that in that fifteen minutes you can be made fit for the presence of God."
"Pardon me! I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I cannot help laughing at the idea of me—me—being made fit for God's presence in fifteen minutes!"
"Let me show you what God says in His book, the Bible. Listen: 'But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).' Are you not 'dead in sins'?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then hear God speak: 'For His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins.' You say that is you. Don't you see that God loves you just as you are? It is true you cannot make yourself good—not in thirty years, much less in three weeks. 'BUT GOD'—He meets you with His great love just where you are."
As the knowledge of God's love reached her heart, this young woman, apparently so careless as to eternal things, burst into tears.
"Oh, why did the others not tell me this?" she exclaimed. "To think of God loving me!"
Have you, dear reader, believed this great love of God?
"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:1010Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10).