94. Facing Mortality with Faith: Insights from Gordon Ferguson on 'God and Cancer'

In this vulnerable and faith-filled episode of Curious for Christ, I sit down again with Gordon Ferguson—author, teacher, and spiritual leader with over 50 years in ministry. You may remember him from our most listened-to episode on God’s view of women.

This time, we explore his most personal book: God and Cancer. It’s a raw and honest conversation about mortality—not to stir fear, but to awaken faith, clarity, and purpose.

We discuss:

• Why we avoid death—and why we must face it

• How illness and aging sharpen spiritual focus

• The practical wisdom of preparing for our departure

• God’s power over death—and what it means for life now

• Gordon’s transformation through cancer and aging

• Stories from real estate and lessons from The Obstacle Is the Way

Key Quotes:

“God didn’t become a servant when He became a man. He became a man because He is a servant.”

“I’ve lost my faith in coincidences. God is always at work.”

Call to Action – from Christine Caine:

• God, what’s on Your heart today?

• How do You want me to participate in your plans today?

• What need do You want to meet through me?

Scriptures to Reflect On:

• John 10:10 – Life to the full

• Romans 8:28 – All things for good

• 2 Timothy 1:10 – Christ destroyed death

Books Mentioned:

God and Cancer & The Bible and Women by G. Ferguson, An Aging Grace by Jeanie Shaw and Friends, The Obstacle Is the Way by R. Holiday

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to Curious for Christ. Today's episode is unlike any other topic we've talked about. It's about our own mortality, we don't like to talk about death in our culture. We avoid it. We cover it up. We distract ourselves with youth, beauty and success. Maybe you're young and this topic feels distant or even irrelevant, but the Bible reminds us in Ecclesiastes seven verse two. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting for death is the destiny of everyone. The living should take this to heart. There is wisdom in reflecting on our own mortality. In fact, we were created to live forever with God. One Corinthians 15, verse 26, caused death our greatest enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. And yet, through Christ, God transformed that very enemy into the doorway to life. Second Timothy one verse 10 says, our savior, Christ Jesus has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Let me share a personal story. I once worked with Ryan Serhant, the celebrity real estate broker you may know, from Million Dollar Listing one of New York's top brokers. A client of mine needed to sell a condo on the Upper East Side and through Ryan and his team. We got it done. Sometime later I saw a video of him on social media reading a question about death. He gave a little grin and said, I will never die, and it stuck with me because that response though confident and even inspiring on a surface. We flex a philosophy that simply doesn't leave room for mortality, let alone for spiritual meaning in it. But what if that's exactly where we begin to see clearly, as Jesus said in Luke nine, verse 24, whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. Ryan Holiday, another Ryan Number one, New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle is The Way Writes that. Oftentimes the obstacle is the way as the title suggests. In other words, what seems to stand in our way, such as aging, for instance, or death as the ultimate obstacle or our own mortality might actually be the path forward. So let's take a closer look at what these realities can reveal to us about God, life, purpose, and eternity with today's conversation, because that's exactly what Gordon Ferguson's story illustrates so beautifully. His experience with cancer and facing the brink of eternity became a lens through which he could see more clearly. God. Himself and his true purpose. So today I'm honored to welcome once again my friend and teacher Gordon Ferguson. His voice of wisdom and vulnerability touched so many hearts in our most Listened to episode to date, episode 26, which is about struggling to trust God and gender roles where we discuss his most old book, God and Women. How did I miss so much? But today we are going to explore something different. We are going to talk about Gordon's least sold book which is titled My Rollercoaster Ride with God and Cancer, than sitting with him on the brink of eternity. A little bit about Gordon. He's a graduate of Northwestern State University and the Harding School of Theology. With more than 50 years of ministry experience, he has served as an evangelist. Elder and teacher authored 21 books and produced numerous teaching series in audio and video. Gordon and his wife Theresa live in McKinney, Texas. And for more information about his work, you can visit his website at www dot. Gordon ferguson.org. And now without further ado, let's step into this powerful conversation. Welcome to Curious For Christ. Do you ever find yourself lying, awake at night, wondering about God's plan for your life? Maybe you wake up with big dreams, but feel unsure where to start or what your next step should be. If you're curious about exploring your faith and finding purpose, then you've come to the right place. Hi, I'm Alexandra. I too felt lost, unsure of the direction my life was leaking. I yearned or understand my purpose and have someone guide me. But I kept telling myself I was too busy. The timing wasn't right, and my lack of clarity prevented me from being consistent until I found Christ. He brought peace into my life and revealed the way to find purpose by anchoring myself. In him. In this podcast, we'll journey together exploring the Bible to gain a deeper understanding of him and cultivate your own personal relationship with Christ. So open up your Bible, put in those earbuds and listen up because God is speaking to you. He's making everything new and you don't wanna miss it. Let's get started. Good morning, Gordon, and thank you again for being here with me today. Thank you for having me. It's always good to see you and be with you. And likewise. And so just for the records, our listeners enjoyed so much our previous conversation about God and women, it's the top episode of my entire podcast. And so I'm excited about today's conversation and we are gonna be talking about another book and a really different topic, always about God, but very different right? Nonetheless. And for those who haven't read your book yet, can you just start by giving us a little context? What inspired you to ride God and Cancer? My rollercoaster ride with him on the brink of eternity well having cancer. And so the timing of this is very interesting. I was diagnosed January the fifth 2022. So three years ago, plus some. And so you go through all these tests, they're trying to see if it's metastasized and spread and all of that. And so it started off actually pretty good. I wasn't that. Concerned or I wasn't hit as much emotionally as I thought I might be. Most people are so fearful of hearing the big C word, yeah. And yet the stats say that half of us are gonna get cancer, and that's going to be an increasing statistic. And yet, at the same time, they're discovering ways to treat it much better. And so I have lists of people that I pray for who have cancer. The large majority are dealing with it and are not terminal. And so I think the improvements have been pretty amazing. And so the big C word should not be quite as scary to us as it has been in the past. So when I was diagnosed, I was 79 years old. I'm 82 now, but I was 79 at the time. And so my comment to my surgeon was we all have a shelf life and I'm already 79. And her comment was that's true, but you're in very good health otherwise, and so we need to get this treated. And she was fairly hopeful that it could be put in remission. And so we went from there. That night after I heard the diagnosis, I slept like a baby. My problem wasn't emotionally being that disturbed about it. But then the disturbance came from a friend of mine insisting he had cancer and been treated successfully, and he insisted that I move to another treatment center. So that was kinda hard to deal with because I was already fairly well set with the system I was in, but I had to change. And so that was the bigger item. And so in the early part of the book, I tell all about that switch and it has some very funny parts to it. Looking back on it, it actually is quite hilarious, but I ran into so many things that were quote, coincidental and I don't believe in coincidences. In fact, I wrote an article one time on my website called I Have Lost My Faith, and then I put in parentheses in coincidences. Because I believe that God's always at work. Yeah. And he works in mysterious ways and he always seems to enjoy putting me in some. Weird situations. I think God has a sense of humor and he likes to trick me and play tricks on me. And we have a, an interesting relationship. So the real challenge for me at first was just doing the switch. I'm glad I did. I went to a better system. One of the top cancer treatment centers in the Dallas area is University of Texas Southwestern. I. I went to that treatment center. I got a wonderful radiologist, a fairly young Chinese woman, raised in Boston, went to an Ivy League undergraduate school trained at Harvard Medical School. So she was a great oncologist. And so God set me up with all of that, and I tell all about the details leading to that, which are. Off the chart. Amazing to me looking back. And so one of the points in the first, maybe third of the book as I describe all of this is describing that you see God in different ways, and I felt like I saw him in many ways, and it's important. To see him, I believe that God can be seen and wants to be seen. And so there are lessons like that stand out, I think, in the early part. But I went after I finally got everything lined up for the treatment, I started chemotherapy, six big pills every day. Three in the morning, three at night, and then radiation five days a week. And so that was the start of it, and it was rather amazing. I had no side effects for three weeks. I did get a blister on my foot, and they said that was normal with the chemo. But other than that, I was still out doing my three to five mile walks every day or nearly every day, and feeling fine, feeling no side effects at all. Then on Easter Sunday, which that year was yesterday's date, the 17th on that day we went to church, we came home, had my son and his family over for lunch, and then I think we were watching the Master's golf match and all of a sudden my body exploded. All the fluid in my body came out from every place it could come out. Wow. And it was a shock and it just depleted me of all fluids in my body. I went to the doctor on maybe Tuesday after just being totally out of it since Sunday. And so she put me on a, an IV to get some fluids back in my body. I went back home. And it still was the same thing. Nothing slowed down. And so I was totally out of it, just in bed sleeping a lot of the time. Just really almost outta my senses. Went back to the same nurse practitioner on Friday and she said she finally asked the right question. We males have a hard time going to hospitals or going to doctors even, at least a lot of us do. And so she finally asked the right question. She said, if you go home, do you think you will be okay? And I thought about that for a minute and I said, no, if I go home, I think I will die. And she said, that's what the chemotherapy doctor and I both think. So go check yourself in to the hospital. And that led to a 23 day stay in the hospital. And during much of that time, that's why I called the ti or put in the title on the brink of eternity because I didn't know if I'd live or die. Yeah. My family didn't know if I would live or die. I looked pretty dead. Wow. At one point. But anyway, it was through that period of time that I had so many insights and so many conversations with God and so much happened. I wouldn't take anything for the experience. Spiritually now. Physically. That's, that was a different matter. It was a very tough time and there were a lot of complications that led to 23 days. But at any rate, spiritually it was very good for me. I love how you share that. You saw God and everything, and I think that's really crucial to handle the ups and downs of life, or the uncertainty is to always seek his face right. And to, and then the insight that you gained. When you were physically at your lowest is incredible. One of the themes that really stood out is living with eternity in mind. And that's something that probably during those 23 days, you gained a different perspective on what did that perspective shape the way you navigated your cancer diagnosis and treatment. And then. And then after being healed, you are cancer free as of to, three years ago. So how does that shape the way you live your life today? I think it shapes it more now than ever to realize that we are all terminal. We all have a shelf life. The Bible talks about, living to be 70 by reasonable strength, 80. That's Psalm 90, the oldest psalm in the Bible. And from that I've always known, that I will hopefully get old and will die. That's inevitable. And so even from a young childhood, people would tell me, the old guys would say, son, it's gonna go by a lot faster than you think. And I actually believed them. Because they're all saying the same thing. And the Bible says over and over that life is like a shadow and it goes by so quickly. But it goes by a lot more quickly than you think it will. And so when I got to the point that I was facing death and thinking I might well die, I. Of course, then you evaluate everything and you think, what would I have done differently? What would I advise other people to do, et cetera. But I live every day. My wife and I both with the concept of we have today. That's all anyone has. Yeah. No one's guaranteed life tomorrow, but we have it today. And so we try to live each day to the full. With God in mind and looking for God's purposes in our life, praying that he will open the right doors, shut the wrong doors, just really basically lead us, yeah. By his spirit and into spending time in a way that would be useful to him and to other people. And the assurance that he will lead us home and we are being carried. I really love that. And then also the wisdom that comes from numbering our days so that we make the best of it today. What is certain is what we have today and how can we make the best of it? It is definitely wise to do that. I wanted to talk about another subject, another theme that you mentioned in the book. It's the role of servanthood. You, it's an, it's another powerful theme. How did that call to serve remain steady or even deepen while you were going through such a personal battle? Servanthood is a huge issue. I have been a leader in churches for over half century, and I have written two books, co-authored one, and wrote another on my own about church leadership because Jesus said in Matthew chapter 20 that the greatest of all is the servant of all. And he said that in the midst of dealing with apostles who were vying for position. Who gets to sit on the left and who gets to sit on the right. And so they were, had a very worldly view of leadership as most do. And yet Jesus said the real leader is the one who is a servant of all. And so I know that is true, but what actually led to the theme, I think developing the way it did with me in the hospital. Is that I have I was raised in a very legalistic church setting. I was trained in a fairly legalistic ministry setting, and so I've always struggled with my view of God. There are certain parts of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that seemed to present God as being pretty harsh and pretty judgmental. And so I'm one of these with what I call an accused type conscience. And I can feel guilty when I shouldn't. There are other people that don't feel guilty when they should, but that's another type of personality. But yeah. At any rate, I've struggled a lot with my view of God and worked on it much of my life, and it came from overcoming my past. It came from trying to overcome some of the early experiences with my father, who was very harsh when I was young. All of that improved with time. He improved tremendously with time, and by the time he died he and I had a very close emotional relationship, but I had a lot to overcome. And for some reason in one of those nights when I couldn't sleep or I was in and out of. Sleep and whatever else that was going on. I don't know, hallucinations or whatever. But there was a saying that a friend of mine. Made. Many years ago, I had a friend we both taught in similar ministry training schools, and he and I were good friends and he is written a lot of books, very good books, everything from commentaries and deep subject stuff, down to devotional books that are extremely good. His name is Jim McGuigan. I'm not sure if Jim's still alive or not. He's somewhat older than me. Not a lot. Years ago, Jim said this, he said, God did not become a servant when he became a human in the person of Jesus. God became a servant. I. God became, he became a human, became a man. He became a human because he was a servant. That's who God is. A servant. And I thought about Matthew 20, the greatest leader will always be the one that's a servant or slave of all. And so if the greatest is the greatest servant, it has to be God, because God is the greatest being conceivable and beyond conception. And so it hit me in the middle of the night that God is a servant. I started thinking, okay, the Bible says that God is the Lord of Lord and the king of kings, but he's also the servant of servants. And so then I began to see God in a much different light, in a better light, and even the things that I couldn't understand or didn't like in the Bible about God. I said to myself, you've got to figure out a better way of looking at that. There's something you're missing here because God is at heart the greatest servant it could possibly be. And then I look at my own life. I'm 82, my wife is 81. We recently celebrated 60 years of marriage. Congratulations. Thank you. But God has blessed us so much. He has served us so much. Yeah. That should have been obvious to me that he's a servant. And yet other people aren't blessed as much as we are, and they have to find ways to evaluate their experiences and the Bible in light of the fact that God is the greatest servant possible. Yeah. The, just the way that he guides us to him, who are we, that he would walk with us through all of it. That is beautiful. And then you bring also a unique perspective on salvation at some point, especially in relationship to servanthood and grace. Can you unpack that a bit for our listeners, especially that notion of. Grace versus work, how do you see grace and obedience working together? What are your conclusions on that? To begin with, God is not just after our obedience. Obedience has a pur purpose, and that is to help us develop into who we are and to be like him. So with little children, you tell them exactly what to do, otherwise they run off into the street. But in time, what you are training them to do is become mature adults that are good people and that do good things. But it's not that, that you focus on the doing of it. It's that you focus on the heart changing. So that is who you become. And so I look at God's grace as a motivation to help me become more like him. And so gratitude is huge. If you look in Romans one where he describes the gentile world, who had really gone off track. He begins by talking about they lost their gratitude. And I have helped people that dealt with physical or chemical recovery groups I've worked with guys that taught those groups and all of them have said the same thing. You can tell when an addict is going to get back on their drug of choice. By when they cease to be thankful. When they lose their gratitude, then they're wide open to Satan getting them right back where they were before. So gratitude just has so much to do with our response to God. I. And to realize that he's not just some master cracking the whip and saying, do this or do that. That's not his purpose. His purpose is to help our hearts change so that our whole life is not so much about what we do, but who we are and who we are is what the actions grow out of. They become natural or much more natural to us. Because that's who we are, so we do it. Yeah. And on the whole servanthood thing, as I point out in the book, I happen to live with a woman who has a gift of servanthood that I have never seen surpassed, maybe equaled, but never surpassed. And she did, she just serves. It's natural. She can't help it, she just does it. It's who she is. And so I try to imitate her because she's a lot better at it than I am. That's great. Yes. That's that's fantastic. Thank you. And it's true. Gratitude keeps us open to being in touch with God's grace. And once we lose that, then we go with our own ways. We go back to what we, what we want instead of being in touch with. What is doing and how he works in our lives, so thank you. So you've said also that we often avoid talking about cancer and death, and it's not an easy topic. It's not a topic that we like to talk about in today's society. We actually go at length to really avoid it. We want to look good and young and feel young and avoid that topic at all costs. Why do you think that is beyond the obvious of, vanity or whatever that reason may be and how can we as believers find courage to face those realities with honesty, with faith, with humility, perhaps also, I. Disease and suffering is difficult. Yeah. No one would volunteer it. In fact, one of the things that I used to pray in the hospital is God, I'm not sure which side I will wake up on eternity or back in the hospital here because I felt like I was 50 50 on whether I lived or died. But I said, Lord I want to live. Especially for the sake of my family. On the other hand, if I get through this, the scary part is I'll have to do something like this again in order to die, because we're all going to die. So I had to count that cost and realize that. But I think the I think the aging part is hard. I've always had trouble with aging all of my life. My 40th birthday, I still remember That was like, wow, that's old. I did pretty good with 50 and 60, oddly enough, because I was still in really good health and traveling all over the world and speaking and teaching and writing books and all of that. 70, on the other hand, that was a hard one. 80 wasn't as hard because I thought, okay. Talks in Psalm 90 about living to be 70 and by reasonable strength, 80. And so I started making a joke that from this point forward I'm playing on house money. Not that I always haven't been, it's always been God's blessing of life. But at any rate I did okay on that birthday, but aging's been hard. But on the other hand, death is the most scary thought that most of us have. And there is a reason for that. Paul said in one Corinthians 15 that death is the last enemy. It is an enemy. And you can look at when people in the Bible died, like Stephen or Jesus. Which we're celebrating that time of the year now. Yeah. But you look at that or John the Baptist, if you watch the series, the Chosen, which I highly recommend john the Baptist, when he's beheaded, they don't show the actual beheading, he dies. And that led to grief among. Disciples among Christians. So there's always going to be a grief connected with death for those of us that are left. But if we're viewing it correctly then those who die, if they're right with God, then they're much better off. And so Paul, who had actually seen the other side. He said he didn't know if he was in the body or out of it. But he was caught up to the third heaven and into paradise. And saw things he couldn't repeat. And I think that's Second Corinthians chapter 12. And so in Philippians one, he says it's far better to die and be with Christ. But he said, for your sake, I'd rather stay so that I can serve and help you. So we have to get past the fears. And to realize that if we're right with God to die is gain, as Paul said. And it takes away a lot of the fear. But the thing that's shocking to me, you mentioned the podcast that we did before, was very well received, very grateful, and glad to hear that. So the book that I wrote on the Bible in Women has sold very well. It's an Amazon book available on Amazon. And it is still being sold after all of this time. And yet, on the other hand, the next book that I wrote was the One on Cancer. And it's out of 21 books that I've written, two of which were co-authored, but 21 books. This book on cancer has sold the least of any book I've ever written by. Far. Wow. People just don't want to talk about it. And yet those that have cancer, we all know we, we have friends or relatives with cancer. Every last one of us. We may have it, we may have had it, but it's so prevalent. That I wanted to talk with people that had dealt with cancer, so I'd know what to expect. Tell me what that radiation treatment was like. Tell me this, tell me how you felt. Because our emotions, you got, you have two levels of emotion. One is the conscious and one is the subconscious. Consciously, most of the time I just lived life when I was diagnosed and being treated. It didn't seem to interrupt my daily life much, and I didn't think about it that much, but every now and then, something would trigger it and I would have a lot of emotion well up. And so we kinda live on two levels emotionally. But we need to recognize that and we need to be able to talk with people that have dealt with it or read books. The people that I've talked to that read the book. With, and they've had cancer. They said it was very helpful. Just to know that all of the emotional up and down and weirdness stuff that's happening is not abnormal. That's just the human psyche and the way that we're built. But it helps to have someone to talk to. Yeah. And then when we come down to the inevitable event of death, I actually, in the book. The first third of it was about the experience, and then I have 20 chapters of insights that I gained during that hospital stay, basically. So 20 different chapters, many of which tie into the concept or the theme of servanthood. But I have some other things that are also very important that aren't exactly tied to that theme. One of them is getting your house in order. And I started thinking, wow, if I die, I have four file cabinets. More than that I have four drawers in a big file cabinet plus a smaller file cabinet full of stuff. And if my family has to go through all of that to decide what's expendable and important that I hate to leave with them with that. And so I recognized my house was not in order. And after I got through this I went through the file cabinets, took a number of boxes of material to a professional shredder and had it shredded. I had a friend, I got electronic stuff everywhere. I'm a techie guy and I flew a guy in, I paid for his plane flight in and back. He stayed with me, but I had him help me for about three days deal with all of my electronic stuff so that my family would not have to go through that and figure out what was important and what wasn't. And so I'm trying to keep my house in order more because I've seen so many families that were just had so many problems. Because their loved one who died wasn't prepared. His house wasn't an oil. I've been to several at my age. I happen to attend a lot of memorial services, at least lately. One of them died at a, to me, a fairly young age. He was in his maybe mid sixties or early sixties. But his daughter, his grown daughter, got up and did her own little short sermon. She said when my dad died, he had his business in order. We knew exactly what to do. Everything was legally written out. We did not have to make one difficult decision, and she said it was such a hard time when he passed because it was sudden and unexpected. She said we didn't have to figure anything out. He had it all outlined. We knew exactly what to do. And she says that was such a relief and a comfort, right? And she said, you need to do that for your family. And so I have a chapter talking about that. And my wife and I have had a will for many years. We've redone it probably four or five times as circumstances have changed. I have instructions about my memorial service. I have instructions about my financial issues, who to contact, phone numbers, who to call first when I die. All of that's written out. All of that's been written out for a long time. So my house was already in better order than most, but I've tried to get people to write wills who won't do it. And yet we're all going to die. Yeah. And so if there's anything I would love to do, it would be to convince people that the idea of aging in death as a part of the human process, and you need to accept it as a normal thing, even though it's scary and you need to prepare. So I think it's a big lesson. Yes. And it is part of living with eternity in mind as well, is what we wanna leave with our family and our loved one and and that with God we can do all things. We can face that enemy and we can take actions today to alleviate our family, our loved ones, so that they can. Grieve in peace. And continue with faith. By the way let me throw one more thing in. I know that you have interviewed Jeannie Shaw for a podcast. Yes. She's a very dear friend of mine. But about 10 years ago, yes she got the idea of putting a book together called An Aging Grace. Yes, and she had different writers for it, and they talked about the whole process of aging and various things about it. Everything from financial issues to sexual issues to. She covered the gamut pretty well. It is a great book that she put together. Thank you. Thank you. And I wrote a chapter about aging and then I wrote the final chapter about the inevitability of death. And I think I did it in a very positive way. And so that's a good book to help people because there are many things about aging that are unexpected. And unwanted. But we have to accept all of us. Hard go through it. Yes. I will put that book in the show note as well, the reference so that it's a great one. And I believe that you wrote those articles before your cancer diagnosis. Oh, yeah. That was 10 years ago. So 10 years ago. Yeah. It was actually, did you have said something differently perhaps? No, I've reread them. I thought they were pretty good. Oh, nice. But I feel like Jeanie prepared me Oh yeah. To think about such thing before. Yeah. Since I was one of the older writers in the book. I think it was helpful to me. I think God designed that and I called Jeannie up after I got the email about the assignments and said, Jeannie, you gave me the chapter on aging and death, the two hardest things for me. And she just laughed. And she says that's not really the intent, Gordon. It has a different title in that. Each of the chapters, but I said it gets down to that and it did, but I tried to do it in a positive way. As I believe God would have us look at it. Absolutely. So we are con concluding here, our interview. Is there one final word of encouragement that you'd like to share with our listeners before we. Number one, get on Amazon and look up the title of that book and buy it. You can get it on the Kindle version or in the paperback version. And I would love to see the book read more because there are many. Principles that I cover in those 20 chapters, the last two thirds of the book, there are many principles I cover as well as the whole ordeal of how do you just even face cancer when you're diagnosed. But the chapters have some great content in them. I feel like it's one of the best books I've ever written, and yet it's the least sold. As I said, by far of any of the 21 books that I've written, so I had no idea it would be so difficult to get people to read it, but it gives you many life lessons, not, it's not all about death and dying, trust me. It's about living and how to live and how to view God, and how to view yourself, and how to view you and God in relationship. And what a personal relationship with God is all about. How can we see God? How can we communicate with God? It has so many spiritual lessons in it, aside from the issue of disease and death. And so I would definitely encourage people to buy it and read it. Everyone that's contacted me after reading it was really happy that they read it. For sure. And we have the spirit of power, not of timidity. We can face and go there with God and see what renewed relationship we can have with him. A deeper one for sure. Thank you so much, Gordon. Your wisdom, your vulnerability, your eternal perspective are such a gift to us. I thank you so much again. And I will put all the links in the show notes for the books and Jeannie Shaw's book as well. And I wish you the best and I wish you good health for a long time. Thank you very much, Alexander. It's great being back on your podcast. You're doing a great work. Keep it up. Thank you. Your spirit communicates encouragement. Thank you very much. Take care. Hmm. Before we wrap up, I want to acknowledge this was a bit of a rollercoaster. We covered a lot of deep, meaningful ground and it stirred me emotionally, spiritually, and practically. I hope it did the same for you and that you walked away with something meaningful. Here are a few key takeaways I personally cherished from this conversation. God is always at work. As Gordon said, I've lost my faith in coincidences. Romans eight, verse 28 reminds us, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, all things. Number two real leadership looks like servanthood. Mark 10, verses 44 through 45 says, whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve. Number three, God did not become a servant when he became a man. He became a man because he is a servant. Just like he is Lord of Lords. He is servant of servants. Philippians two verses seven through eight says He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Number four, gratitude is a safeguard. When we lose it, we open the door to temptation, to bitterness and discouragement. Romans one shows that in gratitude marked the beginning of spiritual decline. Number five, God desires heart transformation, not just outward obedience. Ezekiel 36, verse 26 says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. And finally prepare. God reminded us that preparing for death is one of the most loving, practical things we can do. Not out of fear, but out of love and trust. Philippians one, verse 24 says, it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body Because Paul knew that to remain would mean to serve and help more people. He was always thinking of others just like Jesus. So yes, death is an enemy, but in Christ, we are no longer slaves to its fear. I. Hebrews two verses 14 through 15 reminds us so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. So avoiding it is another way to expressing. Fear of death and the dying to self that Jesus invites us into. Doesn't have to wait for the end of life either. It can start today. It can be your life philosophy. It is a very countercultural way to live. And what does that mean practically? It means letting go of self and asking instead, God, what is on your heart today? How do you want me to participate in your plans? Or, God, what need do you want to meet through me today? These powerful questions were emailed to me by the incredible Christine Kane, and I encourage you to ask them regularly. You will be amazed at how God answers and how peaceful and purposeful your life will become when you daily choose to die to self and walk. With him, John 10, verse 10 says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Amen. So thank you so much for listening, and congratulations if you've made it to the end of this episode. You've journeyed through one of the most important and challenging and often avoided conversations in life, how to face death with faith and live. With purpose if you'd like to go deeper and receive encouragement, resources, and behind the scenes update, I'd love for you to become an insider. So join the newsletter at cures for christ.kit.com/insider with peace and love. See you next time on Curious for Christ. Hi, I hope you enjoy today's episode. If so, would you like to take 30 seconds and share it with a friend who may also struggle with knowing God and his purpose for their life? Also, leave a review on Apple Podcasts and let me know what topics you'd like to hear about in the future. Your voice matters. I'll meet you back next Friday. For another episode.