He’ll Tell Us When We’re Ready
It was an interesting question, especially considering the source – “When was the first mention of Heaven in the Bible?” I needed clarification from this young woman getting PT next to me for a whiplash injury. “Do you mean as a place for the afterlife?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied.
Well, the truth is, we don’t get much about Heaven as a place for the faithful until rather late in Israel’s history. A few glimpses from David and a few more from the prophets is about it. But I think some of our non-Christian friends sort of see this as proof that the Bible is inconsistent and therefore irrelevant.
I promise I am not going to get too deep here. But I think to reach people like my PT friend we need to deal with these types of questions with a broad understanding of God. And here it is – God gives His people information on a need-to-know basis. He always has. He has revealed Himself in burning bushes and fiery pillars; with prophets, angels, and talking animals; through scripture, and through His Son, Jesus. But He has revealed Himself and His plans as His people have needed to work out those plans, not before, and Heaven, like a ton of other things, is one of those slow works in progress. But it’s there if we look.* And so, we have Jesus, dealing with the Sadducees, and He makes clear God had revealed Himself as the God of the living, not of the dead (Matthew 22:23-32). No real mention of Heaven to Moses per se, just an understanding something beyond death is. It’s fleshed out more in the New Testament – why not before? Because only through Jesus is eternal life with the Father is finally realized, opening up in ways incomprehensible before how to understand Heaven! He is the firstborn from among the dead (Colossians 1:18)! Again, let’s not lose sight of things – Jesus’ position is one of importance as He was the first to actually conquer physical death outright (John 10:18).
But even with all the descriptions in Revelation, I think God still hasn’t told us everything about Heaven yet. We’re just not ready! What I do know is this – God has given us all the information we need to know up to this point – He’ll reveal all the rest of it when we finally get there!
*By saying what I say here, I think we also need to be aware we sometimes have questions God is completely uninterested in. In those cases, we’ll just have to square with no answer at all – and that is okay.
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Taming the Tongue in an Unbridled World
Taming the Tongue in an Unbridled World, taken from James 3:1-12. The outline is below the video.
Taming the Tongue in an Unbridled World
Warnings for Teachers
- We are called to account for what we say….
- Doctrinal purity – Galatians 1:6-9; I Timothy 4:16
- Motivation – Philippians 1:15-18 (Paul is kind here); II Corinthians 2:17
The power of the tongue
- We can tame animals
- We can tame the seas
- The tongue is wilder than both…
- Teaching
- Boasting
- Vitriol
- It controls us when we should control it…
- An illustration – Acts 19:13-16
- We need to be careful and committed to Jesus’ Lordship….
What we are called to….
- Theme of “double-mindedness” in James 3:9-12; Matthew 12:33-37 – what are we filling our hearts with?
- Love local – Compare with I John 4:20-21
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A Good Return on Our Spiritual Investment
Financial people like to talk about returns on investment. People like me want to know what I can expect when I put my money into a retirement account for example. Of course, we all understand “past performance doesn’t guarantee future success,” but how about returns on spiritual investment?
I got on this train of thought because someone asked me recently if my daughter was dating anyone – they were in a different market for their nephew so to speak. Problem was, I knew just a little too much about the nephew in question. Bottom line, he had not made sound spiritual investments. It called to mind an old turn of phrase I heard long ago about how so many young people sow their wild oats and then pray for crop failure. But you reap what you sow and this is just as true if not truer in the spiritual realm. And it got me thinking – it’s never too soon to start your spiritual investment.
What that means for parents is to make sure our young ones are getting spiritually fed. Singing “Jesus Loves Me” and other such songs to our babies, taking them to church, praying with them and teaching them the Bible is laying a sound spiritual foundation we must continue to build on as long as they are in our house. They need to see integrity and fortitude in the face of shifting worldly allegiances and values. This is for the long-term, building a future in eternity.
What this means for young folks is to take responsibility for their future, realizing the earlier they start, the easier time they will have later on. My friend’s nephew had not shown trustworthiness in his commitment to Christ. While he now may be sincere in his desire for a Christian wife to spiritually invest with to build a strong Christian life together, the long-term effects of his earlier sins don’t go away. It’s like the one who starts saving for retirement in his 20’s in comparison to the one who starts in his 40’s. The effects linger.
That’s the hard news – but we need to hear it. We need to know the choices we make in regard to discipleship can set us on a sound path or a very difficult one. We need to know every decision we make is either helping us grow spiritually or stunting that growth. We need to understand that the world’s patterns are attractive and easy to fall into and difficult to get out of. And we need to know the consequences of our sins stay with us long after we’ve given them up…
… but they’re not eternal if we are committed to spiritual investment now. That’s the good news! No matter where we are in life, no matter what we’ve done, the debt stands forgiven when we start investing in eternity, giving ourselves fully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ! And here’s the kicker – when we get to heaven, we will find our return on our spiritual investment is the same for us all – I suspect, knowing all our checkered pasts, we will all be grateful!
Texts helping me in these thoughts included Psalm 119:9, Matthew 20:1-16, and Proverbs 22:6.
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Pray Without Ceasing
In Bible class Sunday we came to that passage in I Thessalonians that says, “pray without ceasing” (5:17). I never hear or read that verse without thinking of my first few months in Prague. I was living alone in a country where I didn’t yet know the language and was probably in various stages of culture shock. I was so out of my element that things I had spent years doing as habit just dissipated. Like praying before my meals. I also realized I was talking to myself – a lot! This just wouldn’t do, so I decided I would switch out talking to myself with talking with God. It wasn’t long before I was doing little else. Yes, I still went to language class, yes, I still met with my missionary teammates, yes, I tried to go out and meet people. But I still had huge swaths of time to myself, even in crowds, and I filled them with talking to God. It wasn’t as if I had my eyes closed kneeling with hands folded. I was rather just walking to the tram stop having a conversation about a blooming tree I smelled. I was cooking dinner on the stove talking about seasoning. I was on a run beside the Vltava River wondering to Him about a bird sitting on a limb. I talked to Him about people I saw and about what they were doing. Sure, there were moments of silence where my mind was shut off, but then I would think of something or He would show me something and I discussed it with Him. Sometimes it was deep, sometimes funny, sometimes just a passing thought. Where was the “amen?” There wasn’t one because the conversation didn’t end. And it dawned on me – I had come to a spot where I was constantly aware of God’s presence, talking, not talking, waking, sleeping, eating, whatever. It was almost physical and I Thessalonians 5:17 was real.
Now I think I got the immersive crash-course on this, but I know plenty of people who have come to the spot where they are constantly aware of God’s presence and live in that awareness every second. It’s certainly harder in our distracted world to foster and maintain this, but with some intentionality, it happens. For some, a prayer journal works. For others, it’s prayer walking and then carrying that over into other areas of life, ever growing in the realization that prayer is relational, not formulaic.
That’s just how I got here. I’d love to hear how you do it, so leave your thoughts below and I’ll try to okay the comments as quickly as I can so we can all grow from one another. God bless you today!
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Faith and Deeds
Faith and Deeds outline is below the video
Faith and Deeds
Underpinning….
- Allusion to the greatest command – James 2:19; Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Mark 12:29-30
- What is the second? – Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:31
- How are we reaching out to people?
- Praying for others, but acting too….
- Abraham – the action proved the faith….
- Rahab – everyone feared Israel, Rahab acted on it – Joshua 2….
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Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God in Christ Jesus
I’ve had opportunity to think about Romans 8 this week as I was preparing for a talk at Camp Manatawny. Romans wasn’t my main focus, but who can help but get drawn into how in Christ nothing can separate us from God’s love? That’s verses 37-39. So I found myself exploring more about the extent of that bond we have and focusing on life and death; angels and demons; present and future; powers; height and depth; and, well, everything in all creation – but mostly death.
I think as long as we’re breathing, we kind of have this attitude that we’ve got enough fight in us to withstand a lot of what life throws at us. Our sense of self-preservation kicks in and we tend to avoid a lot we believe could undo us. Even the penultimate demonic fear really pales in comparison to the ultimate; after all, I can resist the devil and he’ll flee from me (James 4:7). It’s the death thing that gets us. We don’t get out of this life alive.
But I think we misunderstand on several fronts because if I’m not recognizing the dangers presented in that list I may live my life a bit too cavalierly, not recognizing the true power of being in Christ – and as Christians, we are in Christ. But death calls us to attention. So let’s break it down.
When we’re baptized into Christ, we are in Christ. He is our actual life according to Colossians 3:4. We enter into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6). So how accurate is it for us to buy into the idea that ultimately, we all die alone? Do we really? Because we have so many passages like John 5:24 that talk about having passed from death into life, present tense. Present tense – not as some future reality, but now. Or how Jesus is now our life (Colossians 3:4). So, when Romans 8 talks about how death cannot separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus, it makes me think….
…And this is what I think – When Jesus hung on that cross and cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried out those words so that no one would ever have to cry out those words again. In Christ, we have already been united with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, and since death no longer has mastery over him (Romans 6:9), it really has no mastery over those in Him.
I don’t know how all of this will play out when I finally lay my body down – but I have God’s word, faithful and true – nothing can separate us from His love in Christ – not even death….
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Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer On Father’s Day
Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer On Father’s Day
(Video link below outline)
Learning from the Heavenly Father – Matthew 6:6-14
Fathers are in relationship with their children
- They know their kids! – v. 8
- Fathers should be approachable…. v. 9
- Comparison and contrast – we are not God, nor are we holy. But we can be honored.
- Matthew 6:9; Exodus 20:12
- Ephesians 6:4
- Colossians 3:21
- Matthew 6:10 – We have responsibility to make God’s will ours and make that obvious to our children.
- “My son(s)” used 18 times in the first 7 chapters of Proverbs….
- Matthew 6:10
- Matthew 7:9-11
- Contrast: I Timothy 5:8
- Matthew 6:12
- Luke 15:11-32
- I Corinthians 13:4-8
- Matthew 6:13
- Contrast:
- Matthew 18:6; Romans 1:28-32 – we know parents who have done this….
- Ultimately, good fathers bring their children to God!
- Proverbs 3:1-8
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Taking Stock
This has been a week of taking stock at the Harrill household, otherwise known as spring-cleaning. All the furniture is moved away from the walls so they (and the back of the furniture) are wiped down, polishes are applied to various surfaces, things that have been lost for a number of months are found, and minor repairs are done. This year we added carpet cleaning to the mix, so everything is taking a bit more time. But the finished rooms look, feel, and smell great!
Suffice it to say, spring cleaning is not a weekly event – it is taking stock – getting us out of routine and allowing us to determine if maybe our routines need a little tweaking. “Perhaps such and such would stay cleaner if we did such and such,” or “This isn’t really serving us well,” or “Why in the world are we holding on to that??” Of course, “take stock” events are important, and not just in the area of house cleaning.
You probably know where I am going with this. In our spiritual lives, if we’re serious about our daily walk with God, it’s critical to take stock and to think about what is working and what is not. Sure – maybe I’m reading my Bible and praying regularly. Maybe I’m going to church every week. Maybe I’m reading devotional material. And surely all of that is good. But am I really letting the Spirit transform me daily? Do I find myself more open to service? Am I allowing God to speak to me through my brothers and sisters for my betterment? And as we take stock, we can clean out those habits that are not bringing us closer to God’s heart and replace them with those things that will.
Below are some links that remind me to take stock:
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Late Thoughts on Uvalde
The world is broken. It broke in Genesis 3. Most of the time, the world limps on, not noticing the injury until something comes along and smashes the broken bits to shards. Like Uvalde. We use words like “shattered” and “devastated” to talk about the lives that are affected. Then we move on, leaving the grieving and wounded to themselves as just another fracture in the broken world we live in.
I thought about this a couple of days after my middle daughter’s graduation from high school. Eight years from now, those who survived the Uvalde massacre will walk across a stage and pick up a diploma. Nineteen families will not participate. The thought made me sick. What made me sicker was the large swath of our society that is willing to allow for such casualties to fight against a non-existent threat to a perceived right. But what can I do?
I can remember this – God is especially interested in justice for those who are the weakest of society. Widows, orphans, and children are held tightly in His heart, and He expects His own to hold them in their hearts too – and protect them. There is no room or excuse for negligence in this area. A society that fails this responsibility is under God’s judgement. While it’s true we Christians live in the world but are not of the world, we have an obligation to the world – to hold out the truth and to be a prophetic voice if necessary; to call people to Jesus’ exclusive Lordship; to stand for the weak in the face of the strong.
Speaking this way, or marching, or signing petitions and writing to congress to call for God’s justice to be done is part of what a college professor I had centuries ago called “messy forays” into the world. I can’t just shut up and say, “The world is thus, I’m not of it” and walk away. I can’t neatly compartmentalize Caesar’s part of the world and God’s. In no sense is faith ever to be a private affair where my church life is separate from the rest of my life. We stain the world with marks of eternity when we get involved.
This website is called “Daily Faith Walk.” I’ve explained before why, but it merits stating again. Our faith is to be active. It is not simply nor primarily a mental exercise. It requires action. It is a walk. As children of God, let’s get to it.