The people we will accompany include:
This entire blog is summarized in two categories. First, the person who thinks it’s all about him as the center of life. He won’t be in heaven. Second, the person who knows, believes and obeys Jesus because it’s always been, is now and always shall be all about God in Christ, and NO ONE ELSE at all! He shall be there. Jesus is now our righteousness and we his sin. But the promise is...one day to come, and from day on forever and ever, we’ll never again shame him by our sins, but only glorify him for his righteousness. Heaven will be filled with humans:
The people we’ll accompany include:
To answer the first, this illustration. Two American paratroopers had such a brawl in training that one vowed to kill the other if he ever had the chance. They both jumped into Normandy first thing 6 June, 1944. The one who feared being shot by the other got lost in the drop. What he didn’t know was the other guy also got lost in the drop. And who did the first guy see across a small meadow in France? Yes, the very man who threatened to shoot him on sight. And what did both men do? As fast as their overburdened legs could carry them they struggled toward each other, fell in each other’s open arms, pounding each other on the back, then going off together to fight Germans. In a crises greater than their differences they found a common cause—and lost themselves in it. In a joy greater than all our differences all in Heaven will forget everything but how glad we are to be together in Christ’s presence. To answer the second, a two-fold response, the first prophetic. The book of Revelation leaves no doubt: there is only agreement in Heaven among angels, elders and the saved that God’s judgments against unsaved sinners are always true, just and deserved. Therefore, if we can’t be happy in Heaven if someone we want there isn’t there, why think we belong there? Only those in absolute, perfect trust in God will be welcome there. The second response is pastoral. As Revelation 21:4 graciously promises, God will eliminate all sources of discomfort, loss, disappointment or pain from our new body and mind. In other words, all memory of what would otherwise surface questions, doubts, reservations, etc., will be erased from our minds. Therefore, we will enjoy permanent amnesia of people we have loved here but aren’t there. End Part V The people we will accompany include:
It does raise a point of difference between the couple and apostles. By doing God’s will, Paul and Silas began a great revival in Philippi, but took a savage beating as a result Acts 16:16-40. If anyone should ask God “why?”, Paul could write it in paragraphs and chapters. Read I Corinthians 4:7-13 and II Corinthians 11:16-12:10. Instead, he obeyed God’s will and took his chances at safety. By living in faith he would never understand those who live by their own choices but blame God when they miscarry.
The people we will accompany include:
The people we will accompany include:
Christian people are always wandering from God. Christ-like disciples will make it their intent to: go after them, challenge them to return, and be the ones helping them back. People who will live with God forever are now concerned enough to care and to care enough to help those in spiritual need.
And contrary to some who say Jesus will take everything from us until we learn to trust him and will then return it to us, Not necessarily. For many believers have learned that what they once considered essential to their unsaved state has no use to them once growing in Christian maturity. They have learned that surrendering to Jesus whatever he took away was the very thing they had no use for once more mature in faith. Indeed, what they could have reclaimed, with his permission, is the very thing they didn’t want at all and would never ask to have again, even if freely given by the Father! End Part II Judy and I shop at the Ralphs grocery on Old Grove Road and the Walmart on Marron Road, Oceanside, California. Because we like the people in both stores. We exchange greetings when we enter, hugs with several and repartee with customers, employees and cashiers.
The people make the difference. Think of Bible people who have made a difference: Adam and Eve, for example. Our common parents. He the handsomest man ever, she the peerless beauty. Nobody ever looked that good again. All without make-up, ladies, and without body-building buff, men. To this writer, other names naturally follow: Abraham, Joseph in Egypt, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, David, Solomon and those GREAT prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. But only as a sampling of many more. For with the sacred writer, we say, “I do not have time to tell about...” et al, et al, so many of God’s great people of old Hebrews 11:33. In the next blog, consider a few of the kind of people with whom we’ll share the new heaven and earth in new bodies and minds. Each kind will make a difference in our lives even then. End Part I Those who seek only to live for Jesus NOW, so they can live with him THEN, shall have the privilege. But it begins now and continues always.
Years ago, in the Plaza Bonita Mall, National City, California, I saw a sign in the Glamour Shots window. It offered a Mother’s Day Special—one for her to remember. That stirred a thought. Jesus does for our soul in conversion and reconstitution of our spirit what Glamour Shots does for our face. But with significant differences.
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