Instead, He seemed to be committing His spirit to the life that He very well knew was waiting for Him just on the other side of death. He had already given a glimpse of that reality when He said to one of the men being crucified beside Him: "Today you will be with me in paradise."

While Jesus may well have died without a life insurance policy, He was reminding us of something far more important—before you and I die we need to be sure we have a life assurance policy.

I know I said earlier that one of the most important decisions a person can make is to be sure he has a good life insurance policy. However, the most important decision a person can make is to be certain he has a good life assurance policy. As a matter of fact, it would be a grave mistake for a person to spend great care selecting the right life insurance policy and give no thought at all to having a life assurance policy. Life insurance can be a blessing to others after you are dead, but life assurance is a blessing to you and me that mere insurance cannot provide.

When Jesus committed His spirit into the hands of God, He knew there was something waiting for Him after death that God had already promised and provided. Jesus knew that death is not the end for those who put their faith in God. Jesus understood that His physical body was in the hands of men who had come to Calvary that day in order to kill Him by the cruel act of crucifixion. However, Jesus also understood that death would not be the end of the story. Jesus understood that three days later the hand of God would roll away the stone set there by a Roman guard, reach into His tomb and bring Him back to life—and, in so doing, shatter the power of death for everyone who puts his faith in Christ.

Let me explain the difference between life insurance and life assurance. First of all, with life insurance you pay the premiums all of your life, but nothing happens until you die. After you die somebody else is the beneficiary of the investment you have made over the years. More importantly, you can be denied life insurance if you happen to have any pre-existing conditions that might cause an insurance company to view you as too high of a risk. However, with life assurance Somebody else has already paid the premiums in full. The songwriter said, "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow."

Second, as the song I just quoted suggests, you and I can receive a life assurance policy even if we have the pre-existing condition—and all of us do have a pre-existing condition. All of us have the pre-existing condition of sin. Psalm 51:5 reminds us, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

State Farm or Allstate might turn me down because of some pre-existing condition; but when it comes to God’s life assurance policy, there is no danger of being turned down due to the pre-existing condition of sin. God knows my faults, but He will insure me. God knows my weaknesses, but He will insure me. God knows all the sins of my past and all the evil that rolls around in my mind in the present, but God will issue me a life assurance policy despite my pre-existing condition.