Chili

There is the first and there is a second death which suggests that we can survive the first but not the second. The first would be limited to our persona that we spun along the road dust of the sun and the second pertains to our being as man in the image of God to which this persona is attached.

The so called afterlife is lived between the first and second death of which the persona has sight but is not able to enter on his own and therefore must die to get there. This is where religion must serve the believer in his final days so he can rise again in the upper room of his own mind where the sea is no longer and the night is no more.

To me that is what the Gospels are all about and there Jesus showed us how to do this.

Chili

. . . we cannot consciously make this decision because the decision-maker is the villain to be left behind. IOW, richess is not a problem but our attachement to them is. This is why we must tie them down to be left on their own and if they are truly ours they will return to us. In the Gospels Judas was not one of those and therefore did not return to decorate the new Jerusalem of Jesus the Christ.