Encouraging Promises When a Loved One Is Dying

“Show us Your mercy, Lord, and grant us Your salvation” (Psalm 85:7).

God brought this verse to my husband’s mind as my family daily gathered around my father’s hospital bed. We knew he would never return home with my mother, and that his day of promotion to heaven was drawing ever nearer.

Such mixed emotions! On the one hand, you rejoice that your loved one won’t have to endure physical suffering much longer, and that they will soon receive the fulfillment of all the promises God makes to His children. On the other hand, saying “see you later” and knowing that “later” might be decades makes it very hard to let go. Ultimately, our prayer for my dad was for God to grant mercy in His passing – that the journey of his entrance into eternal life would not be delayed by a long period of incapacitation both mentally and physically. Show us Your mercy, Lord!

At the same time, we pray that God will receive glory and attention by how we walk and respond on this inevitable path. We know that some of our friends and family who share in this journey lack the hope of eternal life that we possess. Our desire is that those who don’t know Christ would see an indisputable, unmistakable representation of faith in Jesus through our response. We pray for God to reveal Himself in some way to those who witness the passing of a loved one who knows Jesus and is headed for heaven! Grant us Your salvation, Lord!

When my husband shared this verse, the question came to mind, “What other Scriptures would be an encouragement to someone walking this same journey?” Here are three more passages that remind us of the promise of God’s goodness and mercy, even when our loved one is dying.

God Promises to Be Near When Our Hearts Are Broken

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry. The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:15, 17-18).

The Hebrew word for a “broken” heart is to shatter, to burst, to break in pieces, or to crush. It’s a very visual word, and those who are in the process of saying goodbye to a loved one understand it perfectly. Yet this Scripture reminds us that God is very near to us in those times. The Lord knows what it means to be bruised and broken; He is our high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15).

This word “broken” is also used when describing a birth, as when a woman’s “water breaks” just before the child makes his entrance into a new world. I love this connection. God comforts our hearts, and He truly hears our cry. He is “near” to the brokenhearted, especially when our dear one is breaking the chains of this physical world to enter God’s presence.

This passage also promises that God will deliver us from all our troubles. The Hebrew word is nāṣal and means to rescue, to snatch away, to deliver, to be plucked out. God will be with us when our hearts are broken, and one day, He promised to completely deliver us from this world of pain and death! Which leads us to our next promise.

God Promises to Give Us a New Body

“Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:50-53).

One of the hardest things about death is the process of getting there. Some people die quickly – a massive heart attack or a fatal accident, or an illness that is diagnosed late and progresses so quickly you hardly have time to process it. But most of us take a slower path as the body suffers the inevitable sting of sin, our fallen nature which is destined to die. The list of human illnesses, diseases, and diagnosed conditions is long but the result is the same. And often, the path is painful and beyond difficult to endure – both for the person experiencing it and their loved ones who are watching it happen.

That’s why this promise is so encouraging. All who have put their faith in Jesus will one day be changed from mortal flesh into a body uniquely designed to live forever. Our new bodies will never suffer pain or sickness but will be strong and healthy for eternity. No more weakness. No more falls. No more broken flesh. No more operations. No more medicine. No more doctor’s appointments. No more chemotherapy or dialysis or radiation. No man-made machines or prescriptions needed to keep us breathing. Just life – full and healthy life – forever in a body that will never die.

God Promises to Take Us to His Home, Heaven

“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:1-5).

My father never traveled very far during his lifetime. He was born about forty-five minutes from the place where he lived out the entirety of his adult life. He took a few road trips to different places across the country, but except for a short posting in Germany during his U.S. Army service, he was happy to keep his feet planted.

Upon his death, however, my dad’s soul and spirit traveled immediately into the presence of God. Star Wars and Star Trek and their “galaxies far far away” have nothing on this trip. It’s beyond our imagination, and it happened in the blink of an eye, as he exhaled his last breath on this planet and the next millisecond, breathed in the sweet air of heaven, in the presence of Jesus. What brilliant, indescribable things must have burst into sight!

The Bible tells us just a little bit about heaven. The Tree of Life is there, and the river of the water of life. God’s throne is there, and myriads of angels – seraphim, cherubim – all worshipping the One who sits on it. There is no light, other than the pure and holy light of God. It never gets dark.

Jesus talked about this new home. To prepare His disciples for the time when He would return to heaven, He promised to come back and take us there.

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

One day God will create a new heaven and new earth. I believe He will return all things to an even better version of what He intended in the Garden of Eden where He placed Adam and Eve. We will know one another. We will work and serve God with joy. We will eat and walk and talk and experience life as it was always meant to be – true perfection in the presence of our Creator. And it will last forever.

Who Can Claim These Promises?

The wonderful, encouraging promises in these passages are available to everyone. God desires for all mankind to experience both the hope of eternal life in His presence and the reality of it, but there’s a caveat to these promises. They are given only in Christ, and because of Christ. We don’t receive them on our own merit of good works, but by placing our faith in the finished work of Jesus.

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’” (John 14:6).

Scripture tells us “the Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, emphasis added). Jesus’ beloved disciple, the one who sat closest to Him at the last supper, reminds us how powerful and effective Jesus’ death was for those who need the hope of eternal life.

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2, emphasis added).

I am so grateful that my earthly father had trusted the words of our Heavenly Father. He had beheld the Son and believed, and now, all the promises God made have come to their full experience for him. 

What if we don’t believe? What happens after death if we have not repented of our sin and sought the forgiveness of God through what Jesus did by dying on the cross and raising up from the grave?

Scripture tells us our fate too, and it is not a hopeful picture. Those who die apart from Jesus go to a place called Hades to await final judgment, after which they will be cast into the lake of eternal fire, separated from God and all that is good forever. (See Luke 16:19-31; Luke 13:3; Matthew 10:28; 2 Peter 2:4-10; Revelation 20:14-15). Ultimately, it isn’t our sin that keeps us from heaven. It is our unbelief – the rejection of God’s Son, Jesus, who is the only One who can take care of that sin.

God showed my father mercy and salvation.

God rescued my father out of his troubles and suffering.

God changed my father’s mortal body into immortality that will live forever.

God gave my father entrance into heaven.

God hears our cries and is near to our broken hearts.

How about you? Are these promises yours to claim?

They are yours – but only in Jesus. I know this one thing to be true. All those who have passed from this life into eternity, including my father, would tell you, “Don’t wait until death to think about death. Today, consider the promises of God and believe.” Claim the promises that Jesus died to give you and when it’s your turn, you will walk that path with expectancy and hope, and you will not be disappointed.

“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ — that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed’” (Romans 10:8-11).

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/gorodenkoff

Author Sheila Alewine is a pastor’s wife, mother, and grandmother of five. She and her husband lead Around The Corner Ministries, which serves to equip Christ-followers to share the gospel where they live, work and play. She has written seven devotionals including Just Pray: God’s Not Done With You Yet, Grace & Glory: 50 Days in the Purpose & Plan of God, and her newest one, Give Me A Faith Like That, as well as Going Around The Corner, a Bible study for small groups who desire to reach their communities for Christ. Their ministry also offers disciple-making resources like One-To-One Disciple-Making in partnership with Multiplication Ministries. Sheila has a passion for God’s Word and shares what God is teaching her on her blog, The Way of The Word. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook, and Instagram.