Mark Dever, who pastors a church among the rich and powerful people of Washington D.C., shares about how he and his wife walk their dogs around Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill. They often pass by the names of many people who were quite important during their lives, but now those names are largely meaningless to those of us who go by every day, exercising their pets. Reflecting on these once-powerful people Dever writes, "But you know what matters most now and forever is this: Were they forgiven? Whether they were in Congress for one term or five, were they forgiven?"

Then he shares the following story from his friend Don Carson. Carson was writing movingly about the death of his father:

When Dad died there were no crowds outside the hospital, no notice in the papers, no announcements on the television, no mention in the parliament, no notice in the nation. In his hospital room there was only the quiet hiss of oxygen vainly venting because Dad had stopped breathing and would never need it again. But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won admittance to the only throne room that matters. Not because he was a good man or a great man, because he was a forgiven man.