Many ancient beliefs about the afterlife are fascinating. Egyptians, for example, believed that after people died, their bodies needed to be well-preserved in order for them to live well in the next world. That is why mummies existed. Only wealthy Egyptians could afford that special preparation, but it was very important to them.

   Not only were their bodies well-preserved, but many other objects were often included in their coffins. Those objects included furniture, games, and good luck charms. Sometimes mummified animals like fish, cats, and dogs would be packed in with the body so they could be used as offerings to the gods. Some coffins contained copies of “The Book of the Dead” to give the person spells and instructions on how to reach their “afterlife.” Even food was sometimes placed in the tombs for the long “afterlife” journey.

    Those traditions seem very strange to our modern ways of thinking, but they must have made some kind of sense at the time. Even their view of judgment in the afterlife was very different from ours. The Penn Museum website gives us this insight:    

“The ancient Egyptians believed that after a person died, he or she was subject to a final judgment. The heart would be placed on a scale opposite a feather that represented the goddess Ma’at, a symbol of truth and goodness.

“If the deceased’s heart was equal in weight to the feather, it indicated that he or she had not committed evil deeds during life and the deceased could enter the afterlife and live again. If the heart was heavier than the feather of Ma’at, then it was fed to a devouring demon with the head of a crocodile and the body of a lion. This person died a second and final death and could not take part in the afterlife.”

[See http://goo.gl/TVhw2L]

    The ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife were nothing more than guesses–although like all false religions, they did believe that their own good deeds in this world would be their salvation in the next. We can’t blame them, though. No mummy had ever come back from the dead to explain what the afterlife was really like.

    That’s not true for us, though. We have the actual testimony of One who did come back from the dead.  He provided the pathway to a wonderful afterlife. We call it heaven.

    Here is how He did it: The One who created all of us actually left heaven to become one of us. Sinful humanity didn’t appreciate His perfect, righteous life. They killed Him. He let them do that, and His body literally died, and then came back from the dead. Jesus, the One who predicted that He would die and then raise Himself from the dead, made this bold statement: “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved…” (John 10:9)

    We don’t have to be ignorant of life after death because Jesus “… has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

    We also don’t have to fear that our heart might outweigh a mystical feather. When we repent of our sins and turn to Christ, our evil deeds have been taken care of. Jesus “gave Himself for our sins [on the Cross] so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4).

    When we turn from following our own way and follow Jesus, He does more than just pay the penalty for all our sins. He will even cover us with His own perfect righteousness so that we can be “… holy and blameless before Him” (Ephesians 1:4). Imagine that!

    Here is what you need to do: “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” (Romans 10:9–10).

    When you do that, you to have everything you need for the afterlife.