1 Corinthians 15:55-58 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

Every day roughly 175,000 people die. Death has a way of raising our spiritual temperature and pushing us to re-evaluate life…especially to ask, "Am I doing all that I can do?"

Have you ever heard of how the Nobel Peace Prize originated? Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, awoke one morning , shocked to discover his own obituary in the morning news. The newspaper had mistakenly printed the story about Alfred, instead of his brother, who had just passed away. As he read his own epitaph, the story of the "Dynamite King", who made an immense fortune from explosives — Alfred Nobel was awakened to the fact that the world viewed him as a merchant of death! That thought was not wasted on him. Rather, it served as his wake up call!

As he read his obituary with horror, Alfred resolved to make clear to the world his understanding of the true meaning and purpose of his life. So he used his immense fortune to create a foundation which would embody his ideal for world peace…and he is now remembered, not as the "Dynamite King", but the creator of what we know as the "Nobel Peace Prize."

Let's allow this to be our wake up call. To re-evaluate our lives, look within…and ask ourselves, "Are we truly doing all that we can be doing for the Lord?" Because when this life is finally past, and our deeds are all recorded, only what was done with and for the Lord, will last…forever!