You Only Live Twice

As long as you're alive, you have many choices
Upon death, those choices are gone, forever
What remains is what's on the other side

Some believe in reincarnation
That you come back as something or someone else
You might come back as a cat, or a mouse
Or you might come back as a cow, destined for the butchery
And so round and round it goes
Or you might come back as a vegetable, literally
A broccoli, or a cauliflower about to make entrance into some unsuspecting mouth of a diner
And so the cycle repeats

Other believe in existentialism
That this life is all you will ever have
So you might as well make the most of it
For once it's gone, you're gone
Into nothingness, back to the soil
At best you're fertilizer for the earth, at the grave yard
This then drives you to a life of pleasures - get as much as you can
Experience all you desire, for that is all there is to life
Or, it'll drive to a life of desperation, in search for meaning within a philosophy that does not offer hope
And often it becomes a mix of pleasure and depression - a dark misery, even on the brightest day

The title of James Bond's movie "You Only Live Twice" says it all
I believe there is a mortal life, and then there's an eternal one
I believe in death, in resurrection, and in eternal life with Jesus Christ
Death is the one inescapable truth for all - for all race, all nationality, all faiths
All faiths includes atheists - for they have faith in certain beliefs - like a belief that there's no God
My Bible tells me, informs me, comforts and inspires me that there is another life after the mortal life
And the final destination for that is either - eternal death in a place called hell, and eternal life in a place called heaven

John 3:17 tells me that "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
So God's heart is driven by a desire to save people!
It continues in verse 18 that "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."
People say that God is unfair because we will be saved only if we believe in Jesus, and that we will be lost if we don't!
The fact is that we are all lost and condemned way before Jesus arrived on the scene
This shows God's love and grace that He would even bother to send His Son on a rescue mission

And so I believe I have only one life to live, before I go on to live the eternal life, but that both lives start now
In a sense I, like Paul in the Bible, have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me
How so? Well, this life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
You can find this in Galatians 2:20

You only live twice
This life, and the life after!