Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: grief

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 11

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 11

    (For those of you who missed our last episode, these are the roaming thoughts of a man at a funeral.)

    QUOTES from: “Ten Shekels and a Shirt,” Paris Reidhead, (1919-1992) Sermon on Judges 17, c.1945-47

    For a long time, I had thought about the missionary’s words, yet hadn’t thought of it again until now.  I had decided that I guess everybody knows about heaven, but I didn’t know if I really wanted to go there either.

    It’s not that I loved my sin… well, some of it… but heaven and hell didn’t seem real enough.

    I didn’t really get the picture of Heaven and I could not bear to even imagine any vision of hell.

    Then I thought about the corpse of my friend in the casket and had some comfort about the upcoming burial, instead of a cremation.

    And something else that missionary had said captured my mind, as I once again stared out on the cross and took in the sad music.

    * “Yes, will not the judge of all the earth do right? The heathen are lost and they are going to go to hell not because they haven’t heard the gospel.

    *They are going to go to hell because they are sinners who love their sin and because they deserve hell… I didn’t send you to Africa for the sake of the heathen.”

    *“I sent you to Africa for my sake. They deserved hell, but I love them…

    And I endured the agonies of hell for them. I didn’t send you out there for them. I sent you out there for me.

    Do I not deserve the reward of my sufferings? Don’t I deserve those for whom I died?”

    —

     I thought about “Amazing Grace.”

    Hadn’t I heard that he was once captain of a slave ship?

    “A wretch like me,” “a wretch like me,” kept ringing in my head.

    I once was lost

    But now am found

    Was blind,

    But now I see.

    —

     

     

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 9

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 9

    The born again crowds all seem to have a plan for our salvation and confident assurance of a place in Heaven… I just don’t see it in most of their lives.

    I see people who talk about Jesus and Heaven differently in different places. I don’t even think that they understand the salvation they preach.

    Some are always happy to be alive and can’t wait for Heaven. Some are sorry to be alive and can’t wait for Heaven.

    Some celebrate as if Heaven can be claimed on earth.

    (I doubt that they are really looking forward to failing health and open caskets as part of our Heaven on earth.)

    And I have met just a few who talk about Heaven as if they live there, instead of here. They seem to be here though, as if it had something to do with Jesus.

    Somehow all of these pictures of Jesus didn’t paint a clear picture for me. But yesterday, a little girl seemed to have a simple answer. in a clear picture, of some things of Heaven I had been ignoring for a long time.

    Our serial story on Grief, salvation, and being born again from death to eternal life in heaven will resume NEXT Monday.

    In case you missed an earlier episode, here is a link to the beginning of our story.

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 8

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 8

    My eyes drew back from their distant stare to gaze away from the picture. I gazed back from yesterday and looked intently toward the cross at the front of the church.

    I wondered: How does Jesus fit into all of this?

    I had never quite seen the connection between Jesus and all of the pictures of Heaven.

    Yea, I knew what the cross meant; but it just didn’t connect the pictures of Heaven I had ever since my earliest visits to one church or another.  Not only was it not connected, but what I did know didn’t seem to make any sense.

    —

    I guess my biggest pictures of heaven had come more from Christmas than Easter.

    My picture of Heaven was like the Christmas Eve broadcasts of Papal majesty with smoke and robes… and singing of the Hallelujah Chorus to God by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

    Then, of course, there was the seasonal hope of an angel who just wasn’t quite good enough to earn his wings until he could save George Bailey.

    And Catholics worship Mary, too… and Saints (with a capital “S”): Christopher, Valentine, Patrick (Irish Saint of parties), Francis and lots of statues.

    The angels in paintings and windows of their churches and Cathedrals all seemed to paint a picture of Heaven with a rather mythological glow.

    And the Mormon’s… (Aren’t they called: The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints?), with Joseph Smith and multiple wives.

    How are they any different than the followers of the Prophet Mohammed who had multiple wives?

    (Is that OK with God?)

    They celebrate Christmas and Heaven big time; just like the Catholics, with their old established church worship.

    (I think Catholics call it ‘liturgy’ and I know it used to be in Latin.)

    Mormons seem  like a modern christian church with a new “Book of Mormon” instead of the Bible to explain all this.

    Seems kind of like the two young men working out their own salvation at your door, with their magazine to explain the Bible.

    —