✝️ Death is Gain...Right?

Good morning, my brothers! I’ve honestly had a challenging, very reflective week. Personally and in my writing, it’s been tough and sometimes frustrating. But yesterday morning, God revealed the “why” behind the challenges…He had much to teach me…and wanted me to share it directly with each of you. I pray His truth impacts you as it did me. Let’s go!

This week: 5-minute, 22-second read

Victory
Cancer, Grief, Fear… and the Shocking Promise God Just Showed Me

I’m typing this article with tears in my eyes. And as the Holy Spirit begins to press into my heart what He wants me to write, I realize these tears are carrying two very different currents. One is sadness. The other is joy. One is born of despair. The other is full of hope. And somehow, both are flowing at the same time.

This week has been a collision of moments that forced me to confront the reality of death in a way I didn’t expect. A few days ago, my wife and I learned that a dear friend may be facing cancer again. The news landed with a weight we could feel.

As I began typing the first draft of this article just now, my phone buzzed. It was her husband. He said they had just wheeled her into surgery. I found myself praying and typing at the same time.

They have two young sons. That part keeps replaying in my mind. Last night, as they dropped the boys off at her parents’ house, their older son hugged her and wouldn’t let go. The younger boy ran beside the van as long as his legs would carry him when they drove away. As I picture that moment now, my tears return.

Also, yesterday would have been my dad’s 88th birthday. He has been gone almost twenty-two years now, taken by pancreatic cancer. There isn’t a day I don’t think about him. I miss his wisdom, his encouragement, his quiet strength. And I mourn the fact that my kids never truly had the chance to know him.

My mom passed away just over eight years ago. Cancer again. Esophageal Cancer. It feels like an unwanted character that keeps trying to insert itself into the story of my life.

I hate cancer.

God’s Fingerprints

But despite all the emotion churning inside me, I can see the fingerprints of God all over this week. I can see now why, earlier in the week, I kept opening my Bible and finding myself locked in place inside 2 Corinthians chapters 4 and 5.

I tried to move on to something else, but the Spirit wouldn’t let me. Every day, it was those chapters. Every day, the same words rising off the page. Every day, the same whisper: Stay here.

And when I sat down to write this article on Monday, nothing came. Not a word. Tuesday, still nothing. Wednesday and Thursday, not a spark. I haven’t had a week like this in a long time.

My rhythm is usually predictable. Early draft Monday, refining through the week, final edit Thursday night, ready to go by Saturday morning. But this week, it’s Friday morning, and for the first time all week, I can finally sense the Lord saying, “This is the moment. Now write.”

Looking back, I see the purpose so clearly. God needed me to sit in the tears before I could write about hope. He needed me to feel the weight of earthly pain before I could grasp the enormity of eternal glory. He needed me to walk through real fear so I could proclaim real courage. And He needed my heart tender enough to feel the truth of His Word, not just read it.

That’s why 2 Corinthians 4 and 5 would not let me go. Those chapters unlock a truth every Christian man needs to cling to, but few of us actually live in: If you are in Christ, you have absolutely nothing to fear in death.

That is not a sentimental statement. It’s not a platitude to make funerals easier or a soft blanket to comfort the grieving. It is the unshakable, blood-bought, resurrection-anchored reality of the gospel.

Temporary or Eternal Focus?

Paul writes, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” Those words feel almost jarring in a world obsessed with preserving youth, avoiding weakness, and pretending death is far away.

Our bodies ache, break, age, and decline. They receive diagnoses we never saw coming. They carry scars we didn’t ask for. They remind us every day that we are not in control.

But Paul says that’s not the whole story. What we see is wasting away. What God sees is renewal. Even as our physical strength weakens, our spirit is being strengthened. Even as our earthly body falters, our eternal life deepens. Even as the world around us associates aging with loss, Christ reframes it as preparation.

Paul continues:

I’ve always loved that verse, but this week it hit differently. Light and momentary? Cancer does not feel light. Grief does not feel momentary. Fear does not feel small. Watching a child run beside a car as his mother heads toward another surgery is anything but light.

But Paul isn’t minimizing suffering. He’s comparing it.

True Victory

When you take the longest, most painful trial of your life and set it next to the endless joy of eternity, suddenly the scale reveals the truth. Compared to everlasting glory, earthly suffering is small. Compared to everlasting joy, earthly pain is brief. Not meaningless. Not easy. But temporary.

And then Paul gives us one of the most beautiful glimpses of heaven in all of Scripture:

This earthly tent, this fragile, temporary, decaying body…is not our final home. When it eventually fails us, God has something already prepared. A perfected body. A resurrected body. A body that will never age, never break, never weaken, never grow sick.

That means there is no cancer in heaven. No chemotherapy. No tumors.

No wheelchairs. No chronic illness. No disability. No fading eyesight or failing joints. No breathless nights or hospital beds.

No last goodbyes.

Everything that hurts here will be healed there. Everything that breaks here will be restored there. Everything that burdens us now will be absent forever.

And all of that truth leads to the verse that has become an anchor in my life:

I’ve read that verse a hundred times. I’ve quoted it, taught it, admired it. I hope it could be quoted at my own funeral. But this week, for the first time in a long time, I felt it.

To die is gain.

It sounds outrageous at first. How can death be gain? How can the great fear of mankind be reframed as victory? Only one reason: because Christ is our life.

If Christ truly is our life, then death is not a loss. It is not a failure. It is not a tragedy. It is not the end.

It is the doorway through which the believer finally steps into the fullness of what God intended all along.

Death as Gain

Death is not defeat. For the Christian, it is homecoming.

Paul wasn’t being poetic when he wrote those words. He wasn’t trying to inspire. He wrote them from prison, under threat of execution, nearing the end of his earthly ministry. He meant every syllable.

To live is Christ. Every breath he took on this earth was devoted to serving, honoring, and knowing Jesus. And to die is gain. Death could only give him more of what his heart most deeply wanted.

All Jesus.

Absolute joy.

True life.

Total freedom.

Complete wholeness.

We often avoid talking about death because we’re terrified of it. But Scripture refuses to let death stay in the shadows. It drags it into the light and shows it for what it truly is: defeated.

Christ’s resurrection means death cannot win. Jesus secured our victory and eternal life.

Christ’s resurrection means death is no longer something to dread but something to anticipate.

When the Christ follower truly believes this, not intellectually but deep in his bones, it changes everything. He lives differently because he knows his life is secure.

He suffers differently because he knows suffering is temporary. He grieves differently because he knows grief is not the end of the story. He loves more boldly because he knows nothing eternal can be taken from him.

And he walks through this broken world with an eternal perspective that transforms every trial into a reminder of where he’s headed.

So here I sit, tears still on my face, with a heart both heavy and hopeful. The fear is real. The pain is real. The losses are real. But the hope is more real still.

I don’t know what will happen with our friend’s surgery. I don’t know how many more years any of us have.

But I do know this with absolute certainty: if you are in Christ, there is nothing in death that can harm you. Because Christ has already passed through death and defeated it.

And if He is your life, then death is your gain.

Reflection and Action for This Week

1. When you think about death, suffering, or the frailty of your earthly body, what emotions surface most strongly in you—fear, peace, denial, hope? Why?

2. In what ways is God inviting you to shift your focus from the temporary struggles of this life to the eternal glory He promises in Christ?

3. Is there an area of your life where you’ve been living as if this world is your home, rather than remembering that your true home is in eternity?

4. Who in your life is walking through fear, grief, sickness, or uncertainty—and how can you come alongside them with the hope of Christ this week?

5. What is one practical way you can live with a “to live is Christ, to die is gain” mindset—courageous, surrendered, and anchored in eternity?

-Will

As we come to the end of 2025, if the Lord has spoken to you through More The Man, please prayerfully consider making an end-of-the-year, tax-deductible gift to the ministry. You’ll help us reach more men in 2026 who need encouragement, hope, a sense of fraternity, and the truth found in the Bible. Pay It Forward Here.