It's all a matter of perspective on how one chooses to remember Michael Jackson: most will reflect on the music, since it was our entry point to the man. Words like "unprecedented", "record-breaking" all are getting thrown around in the wake of his death. And they're all applicable. But one has to have a heart that holds that kind of music to be able to release it, and Michael had that in abundance.
  Many will look back on the odd and eccentric behavior that took hold of him after his dramatic ascendence to the stratosphere of nearly every world that music had to offer. We can have a good chuckle at when he allegedly bought the bones of the "elephant man", or when his hair got set on fire(sorry, but I laughed my arse off when it happened years ago...so freaky!), his sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Coincidentally, the latter was rather forward thinking, since a number of today's professional athletes use the chambers to aid in healing from injury...including former Vikings safety Darren Sharper.
  Still others might focus on his last few years, where a lot of his more controversial issues took root. But ultimately, this is how I choose to remember Michael:

    

  I believe this image to be a portrait of the real Michael Jackson: a young man proud of his identity, not totally knowing what lay before him, but nonetheless ready to take it on...or so he thought. The purest representation of his essence frozen in time, and he spent the rest of his life afterward trying to modify it in order to please as many people as possible―and as necessary―to keep what he had become accustomed to in the wake of the dizzying success of Thriller. What's sad is that he didn't realize he was tinkering with the very thing that made many of us admire him to begin with.
  As far as the music goes, I ceased to follow or care about it much after the Bad album. The odd song came out that I liked, but you never got over the sense that his heart wasn't into the music so much as it was into satisfying the need to continue proving himself, never understanding that he had long ago cemented all the proof he ever needed.
  As is customary with many when something like this happens, you start hearing platitudes like, "He's in a much better place now", from folks who normally haven't darkened a church doorway in years or have had anything to do with God otherwise. We don't want to imagine someone who exuded such gentleness of heart and a childlike spirit―some might argue childish―having any other final outcome. I know I don't.
  But in this loss, as well as the rest of the surprising wave of celebrity deaths in the past week, not to mention those of regular people that happen every day, we are faced with one simple reality:

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. - Heb. 9:27-28

  We can't really know for sure if Michael had taken hold of this promise at some point in his life (at least I don't recall him saying so). I for one hope he did, that his name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, because I want to see him in Heaven someday as much as anyone! Those who yet live still have time to do exactly that. I challenge anyone and everyone who has not yet placed their trust in Christ as Savior, God and King to do that while there's still time. What we've seen in the past week clearly warns us we can predict exactly nothing. Michael Jackson gave us great, memorable music, and all of us who are his fans are grateful...now let's add a new song to the mix! (Psalm 98:1)