Another good friend of mine died this week, Doug Sheets. He got an infection in a knee replacement he had, which led to other issues that his body couldn’t recover from. Doug was the worship leader at Jefferson Baptist Church for many years. I first met Doug at one of our early “Pastor’s Prayer Summits” at Cannon Beach Conference Center in the mid-nineties. He was one of the worship leaders there, and I remember being very blessed by the worship times we had there when he was leading. He was unemployed at the time and volunteered to come lead worship for JBC. After a short time, he became our full-time worship leader. It was in 1990 that prayer became a significant focus of our church, and with Doug’s leadership, it was very easy to add worship to prayer as our primary focus. God used Doug in those years to help shape us into the church we are today.

Because of my age, I think about death a fair amount, and then when someone I know well, who was younger than me, dies, it prompts even more contemplation about this step into eternity. As I think about heaven, what it will be like, what it will feel like to make that transition, I usually start thinking about the “Judgment Seat of Christ,” and how I will do there. Standing before Jesus, the King of the Universe, the Son of God, the creator of everything, I wonder how that will feel. The Apostle John, in the 1st Epistle of John, suggests that some will shrink back in shame at their first view of Jesus. I do not want to do that, but I want to stand before Him with confidence and hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”