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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.

—

September 17, 2013
ANGRY Children of a Loving God – Part 1

“Our lives are weighed on a sensitive scale of love-hate relationships.

Why do Christian seek secular solutions for problems of God?

Answer: Because we share in common the same love-hate relationships of man.

The true answers of ANGRY children of a loving God must come directly from God.

To begin, let us establish the difference between the scriptural approach of Christians to our ANGER and the ineffective secular approach of those separated from our loving God.

John 3: ¹⁶For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

¹⁸“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

²⁰For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

Do Christians sometimes practice evil? Of course we do.

Do we believe in Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of God? Of course we do.

Therefore each time we sin; every time we have anger; all times we hate the light and turn to darkness:

we must repent and turn back to our loving Heavenly Father and the Perfect example of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We must hate only evil and love all that is good.

Yet it’s not always easy.

Hear this discussion between a lawyer and Jesus:

Luke 10: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”

²⁷So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”

²⁸And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

²⁹But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Isn’t that just what we tend to do when we do NOT want to love someone? How like the world we can be in our relationships with others.

Two commandments: Love God. Love each other.

Where does that love-hate relationship seep into each of our lives? The answer is: in our sin.

[To be continued…]

Just in case you missed our earlier related post: Christian Anger

September 16, 2013
Christian Anger

Ephesians 4:25-27

English Standard Version (ESV)

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.

Do you ever get ANGRY? What do you do with your Christian Anger?

Do you let many moons set on your ANGER, even though the Bible tells us NOTto let even one day go by?

I rarely get angry because I am quick to remember the hurtful consequences of past anger; but one day last week, I became angry.

I hope that it was righteous anger. I was lashing out against a sense of frustration in trying to defend my wife against an immovable bureaucracy causing high cost of injustice. (I wanted it taken care of RIGHT AWAY!) Have you ever been there?

Of course in time our Lord will right all injustice and reward all PATIENCE for suffering injustice. It may have been “righteous anger.”

After the situation was partially resolved, I made a phone call to the person who patiently endured my tirade of something out of her control and I apologized (before the sun set on her tough day).

Here is what helped me to PAUSE before I let out anger

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Even when Jesus showed righteous anger, his anger was witness to God!

Careful… Our ANGER usually is not witness for God and makes others think that Jesus makes NO difference in us, IF HE is NOT Lord over our ANGER.

Between the STIMULUS ……..and……response…. Pause for Jesus’ sake.

We PAUSE here for you to Worship our Lord over the weekend…

…to be continued with a series beginning Monday, 16 September 2013:

ANGRY Children of a Loving God

September 13, 2013