Jim expressed his joy to me during our visits in his last weeks. “Pastor Burger, you know when you put butter on a hot ear of corn, and that butter just slides off as it melts? That’s what God is doing with my troubles. Soon I will be in heaven and I won’t have a care in the world.”

He was echoing the joy of the apostle Paul: “We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. . . . Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:14,16-18).

Forgiveness of sins

On another visit Jim expressed his joy in the forgiveness of sins. “Pastor Burger, do you remember Frank Sinatra’s song, “My Way”? I could have written that song. I lived too much of life my way, and believe me, it was the wrong way.” Then, through repentant tears, he continued, “But God loves us and forgives us. It’s just such a relief.”

Jim was simply restating what Paul had said about the certainty of reconciliation with God in a risen Savior: “If, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:10,11).

The promise of heaven

Days before his death, a happy Jim told me, “Pastor Burger, you know what it was like when you were five years old and coming home from school, and the bus stopped at your street and the door opened and there on the sidewalk was your mom, smiling, crouching down, and opening her arms wide to catch you and embrace you as you ran to her? That’s how I see going to heaven. Jesus is waiting for me, and I am almost home.”