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Key Bible Verse: And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:11). Bonus Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:1-8orRomans 8:18-25

I loved to visit my friend, Bill Weeks. He always had a mixture of good advice and bad jokes, punctuated with his distinctive laughter. No matter how bad the joke, you simply had to laugh with him.

Bill was diagnosed with cancer. One month later he died. Between the time he received the news of his cancer and the funeral, I sat with him in his office. He was already very weak and was in the office only for a few minutes. We talked about the disease for a while, and there was nothing funny about it.

Suddenly Bill spun around in his swivel chair, his eyes lit up, and he said, "You know, it's like a coin flip. Heads, I win … tails, I win. Either way, I'm going to heaven!"

The passion of his statement winded him, but the thought of heaven thrilled him. As he read the passages on heaven in the Bible, he read of home. The glimpses of heaven energized him. Bill's death was no sad departure. At his own instruction, a jazz band played "When the Saints Go Marching In" to begin his funeral service. It wasn't hard to imagine Bill half dancing, half running across the golden streets of heaven, laughing at the thrill of simply being there.

—Andy Cook in A Different Kind of Laughter

My Response: Is my outlook on death partly pagan or wholly Christian?

Thought to Apply: So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.—JOHN BUNYAN

Adapted from A Different Kind of Laughter (Kregel, 2002) by permission.

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Give me a hint, Lord, of the splendor You've prepared for me when I graduate from this life.

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