Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: salvation

  • 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.

    —

  • Will the Judge of the Universe Not Do What Is Right?

    Will the Judge of the Universe Not Do What Is Right?

    This is not a Biblical quote, as near as I can tell; yet it is from the Lord.

    Do you trust the Lord God to do what is right?

    Jesus Christ IS and will judge what is right and what it wrong.

    John 5: ESV

    24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

    25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

    27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

    Witnesses to Jesus

    30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.

     Will the Judge of the Universe Not Do What Is Right?

    Trust in our Lord Christ Jesus with all of your heart.