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HEAVEN NINE
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, November 3, 2015 – One topic that makes many born-agains intensely uncomfortable is earthly possessions.
You know – your stuff. Your belongings. The ‘treasures’ you cherish and the things you use daily that you can’t imagine doing without, like your car, your furniture, your pots and pans, your dishes, your phone.
Your stuff.
Jesus had no stuff. Whatever he’d accumulated in Nazareth before leaving home to preach, he likely left behind in Nazareth. He had only the clothes on his back when John baptized him. As a preacher, he roamed from village to village, using what he found along the way but taking nothing with him.
Jesus is our model on how we are to live our lives. All born-agains accept this as God’s truth, but when it comes to earthly possessions, some get very touchy.
People can get really attached to their stuff.
The rich young ruler was attached to his stuff, too, and Jesus saw that it was preventing him from doing God’s will. That’s why he told him to get rid of it.
All of it.
Yikes.
Some of you reading this are probably feeling distinctly uncomfortable right about now. Maybe you’re thinking that getting rid of your stuff doesn’t apply to you because you can do God’s will well enough WITH all your stuff in tow, thank you very much.
That’s between you and God, but Jesus is our example, and he had no stuff. Before he left Nazareth, he likely had lots of stuff, but as soon as he started preaching, he let it all go. It would have slowed him down and redirected his energy and attention. Stuff can do that to you. Possessions can possess you even more than you possess them.
Better to live each day as if it were your last, because it could be. We came into this world empty-handed, and we’ll leave empty-handed. When we become born-again, we die to this world. What does that mean, to “die to this world”? When you die, you no longer have any stuff. Other people get what had been yours. If we are to live our born-again lives as if we died to the world, then our stuff has to go, just as the cursing, the fornicating, the lying, the stealing, the coveting, etc., also have to go.
When we become born-again, we leave the world spiritually and enter into a transition zone between Heaven and Earth. Our body is still in the world, but our spirit is not. What the world holds dear, we no longer value. That includes our and everyone else’s stuff.
I know this is hard for some of you to read. You might even point to clever arguments that show you can have your stuff and still do God’s will, have your cake and eat it, too. As long as your possessions don’t possess you, you can keep them, right?
Right?
Jesus is our example. He had no stuff.
“Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come follow me.”
HEAVEN SEVEN
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 28, 2015 – As born-agains, the spiritual tools we value the most, use the most, and need the most have no place in Heaven.
Imagine that!
The Ten Commandments are obsolete.
The directives God gave us through Jesus don’t apply.
We don’t have to pray.
And there aren’t even any Bibles (King James or otherwise).
Imagine that!
Faith, hope and charity have value only in this life.
We don’t need faith in Heaven because, as Paul told us, we’ll see and know God fully as he is.
We won’t need hope, either, because we’ll have everything we want and there won’t be any adversities to overcome.
And we won’t need charity, the self-less love that’s expressed by obedience to God’s will. There won’t be any need for charity in Heaven because we’ll all have the mind of God, so we’ll all be doing God’s will automatically.
As for praying, we won’t need to do that any more because we won’t have to talk to God and Jesus in faith, trusting they hear us; we’ll be able to talk to them face-to-face.
So you see, there’s no ‘faith, hope and charity’ or praying in Heaven because there’s no need for them.
And there’s no free will, either (to which I say: THANK GOD FOR THAT!).
I’m glad God gave me free will, but I’ll be even gladder to kiss that double-edged mother good-bye.
It’s caused me a lot of problems.
Bye-bye, free will!
Bye-bye, Bible!
Bye-bye, faith hope and charity!
Bye-bye, loving your enemies!
Bye-bye to everything but God’s will and God’s goodness, because that’s all we’ll need when we arrive in Heaven. God will provide us with everything else, just like he provides for us on Earth.
And the last thing we’ll say good-bye to is good-bye itself, because there are never any partings in Heaven. Everything and everyone are there to stay.
HEAVEN SIX
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 27, 2015 – If you had any idea how much God loves you and how much he does for you every second of every day, you’d never get off the floor, you’d be crying so much, face down, in total gratitude.
But God doesn’t want you on your face crying. He wants you looking up and laughing and running around and playing and listening to him and hugging him and sitting on his lap. He wants you to pay attention to your big brother, Jesus, and to follow his example in everything you do. And he likes it when you think of him every so often, not as an obligation, but just to say “hi”. In fact, he loves it when you drop by in prayer for no other reason than to say “Hi, Dad”. That means everything to him, just like it does to earthly parents. He doesn’t want anything from you. He just wants you to make the right choices for your own benefit, not for his.
He just wants you to come home.
HEAVEN FIVE
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 26, 2015 – Every born-again believer has three main jobs while they’re here on Earth – the first is to tell people about Heaven, the second is to show them how to get there, and the third is to “endure to the end”.
If you’re reading this, your end hasn’t come yet, so you’d better keep enduring. Otherwise, Heaven is no guarantee for you, any more than it is for anyone.
As for telling people about Heaven and showing them how to get there – the best way to find out about Heaven is to read scripture and ask God questions, and the best way to show people how to get to Heaven is to point to how Jesus lived his life and to make the choices he made.
Jesus is not just our example of how to live a good life – he’s everyone’s example, no exceptions.
One thing we need to clear about is that Earth is a knock-off of Heaven – a very small, very imperfect knock-off. Earth is bound by time and space, whereas Heaven is boundless and eternal. Earth can corrode and rot, but Heaven cannot. There is no death, disease or decay in Heaven. Everything and everyone are perfected, but not in a mindless or automaton kind of way. On the contrary: Imagine the best day you’ve ever lived on Earth, when your mind was clear and sharp, your body was primed and invigorated, and the weather was exhilarating. That’s a foretaste of how you’ll live every day in Heaven. Now combine that with the emotional ecstasy you experienced on being reborn, at that instant when the demons exited and God’s spirit entered in. There are no words on Earth to describe that ecstasy because it is not an earthly sensation; it’s Heaven.
So this is what Heaven is like – perfect senses, perfect body, perfect feelings, perfect weather. Every day, all day.
And the sleeps at night – like nothing you’ve ever experienced on Earth! Absolutely perfect sleeps, without exception.
When you ask people what they think Heaven is like, they usually talk about clouds and harps and angel wings. This is not Heaven; this is satanic propaganda to make Heaven look alien and boring and dissuade you from wanting to go home. Because that’s what Heaven is – home: The true homeland of all souls. We’ve already been there because we were created there. And every iota of our being wants to go back.
In fact, we want to go back so much, we try to recreate Heaven here on Earth. We do it through social systems (where everyone is equal and is watched over by allegedly ‘benign’ leaders who strive for the ‘common good’) or through medical care (where people are injected with chemicals to appear ‘beautiful’ and ‘youthful’ and ‘healthy’) or by living beyond our means. We are goaded to strive for artificially ‘perfected’ bodies, to live in a dream home with a dream kitchen, and to take occasional breaks from our dream jobs to go on dream vacations, sometimes in our dream cars. None of these things are, of course, anywhere near perfect, and none of them ever truly satisfy us, no matter how “dreamy” we or our surroundings become. Other than for the presence of God’s spirit, it’s impossible to recreate the ease and perfection of Heaven here. God made it impossible so that we wouldn’t get too comfortable on Earth and lose sight of our true destination.
There is nothing on Earth that can compare to Heaven, except for the presence of God’s spirit and the beauty of God’s creation.
In Heaven, everyone believes in God and everyone follows Jesus. Everyone is young and beautiful and healthy. There is no pain, either physical or mental, no regrets, no bad memories, and no bad thoughts Everyone is athletic and everyone can “sing like the angels”. There is only love in Heaven; no fear. Nothing rots. There are no conspiracies against God; no grumbling; no doubters. Think of the best day or best moments you’ve ever experienced, and then expand that into infinity. That’s Heaven.
As Jesus reminded us, we each have our own personal space in Heaven. It’s our real forever home. God has shown me mine. It’s everything that I’ve ever wanted in a home, and all my “treasures” are there. It’s small and cosy, and there’s a beautiful garden out back with all my favourite trees and flowers and butterflies and birds. My cats are there, too (they even have their own wing!), along with all my favourite foods. And there’s a huge skating surface to the rear of my property where I can figure skate to my heart’s content, performing tricks and manoeuvres that I could never do while on Earth in my imperfect, non-athletic body.
By the way – you’re all invited to come visit me in Heaven, if you make it and I make it. Just drop by and say: “You invited me on your blog”, and we’ll sit down and have a big slice of whatever you fancy the most, washed down with your favourite beverage. And then we’ll have a good old chat, because we’ll instantly be the best of friends in a way we could never be on Earth.
Only those who love God and choose his way will make it to Heaven. Maybe some people we knew on Earth will be there, but maybe not. Those who don’t make it, we have no recollection of when we’re in Heaven. We don’t mourn them or miss them because, for us, it’s as if they never existed.
They, on the other hand, can never forget us or what they’ve forfeited by their wrong choices while on Earth. That’s one of the most horrendous aspects of Hell – never being able to forget or overcome regrets or escape the consequences of bad choices. Hell is one long tortuous panic attack that never ends. And that’s on a good day in the Pit.
God’s shown me my little piece of Heaven so I’ll know what’s waiting for me if I keep on the right path. This helps me endure what’s going on here now and also provides a powerful incentive to make the right choices, especially when the temptations are strong. Paul was shown Heaven; everyone who’s born again is shown Heaven. All you have to do is ask God and he’ll show you, when you’re ready. Bug him enough, and he’ll show you a little sneak-peek, even if you’re not quite ready. He loves showing you what he’s got “stored up” for you. He just doesn’t want you to get ahead of yourself and assume that Heaven is a given.
Because Heaven is not a given, not for anyone.
Hell still remains an option as long as you’re here.
Our best experiences on Earth are a foretaste of Heaven. Don’t mess it up for yourself.
Follow Jesus all the way home.
HEAVEN FOUR
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 23, 2015 – God looks for sincerity in those who say they are his.
Jesus told us that God wants people to worship him in spirit and in truth.
Sincerity means more to God than every word of praise or worship ever written.
A simple – even unspoken – “thank you” or “I’m sorry” or “Help!”, when it comes straight from your heart, sends God rushing in.
Nothing on Earth compares with a hug from God.
It’s peaceful and energizing at the same time.
Being in close relationship with God is all that really matters.
To get there, be honest with him, as Jesus was.
Trust him. Lean on him.
Hug him back.
That’s how you stay close to God.
And that’s how you get his hugs.
HEAVEN THREE
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 22, 2015 – Whining as a born-again believer has to be the most ridiculous waste of time that any of us can indulge in, and yet we still do it. I stand as guilty of this silly offence as the next person. Whining is an indication that faith is momentarily weak, that we’ve forgotten that God is in control, and that things are as they are not because God is vindictive and wants us to suffer, but because we’ve either brought the ‘suffering’ on ourselves, or we’ve had expectations that were not to our benefit and so were nixed by God.
In other words, we chose against God’s will.
This is not necessarily the end of our or anyone else’s world, but it is a wake-up call.
Following Jesus means living more or less opposed to everyone who isn’t following Jesus. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s pretty much the whole world that we’re living opposed to, so it shouldn’t be surprising to us (and it certainly isn’t to God) that sometimes we’ll want what the world wants, not what God wants. Just call it peer pressure.
When that happens, don’t be too hard on yourself. Recognize it for what it is, and go to God for help. Yell at him if you want to (he’s got industrial-grade earplugs for moments like these), but remember who’s the source of all good. It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s not the government, it’s not anyone or anything but God.
Think of how Jesus lived. He was for all intents and purposes homeless. He had no money and no possessions beyond the clothes on his back. And yet other than for the odd time when he resorted to eating corn out of a farmer’s field or tried to eat figs from a fruitless tree (and then cursed it for its barrenness), he always had plenty of food and a place to sleep. He was healthy. He was physically vigorous and fully employed in God’s work. And he apparently had such a kick-ass cloak that the soldiers threw lots for it while he was dying on the cross.
This kind of life is where we’re all headed, if we’re true followers of Jesus. We won’t have a home to call our own, we won’t have possessions beyond the few we can carry with us (and I’m not talking U-Haul or RV here), and we won’t have any money beyond what we need for our ‘daily bread’. Our work will be fully for God and his kingdom, and our only friends will be those who, like us, love God and follow Jesus.
Needless to say, we won’t have many friends on Earth, but the one or two that we do have will be true friends, not facebook friends or fair-weather friends.
In any case, the only friend we really need is Jesus. He understands what we’re going through because he went through it himself.
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is not just a song. “Give us this day our daily bread” is not just a line from scripture. These are directives on how to survive in this world and overcome temptations. Whining is a temptation. Get past it. Many of those who followed Moses into the desert didn’t get past their whining and never made it to the promised land because of it.
Don’t end up like them. Next time you’re tempted to whine about something, remember: “This too shall pass.”
HEAVEN TWO
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 20, 2015 – We know that God’s justice is perfect, so we know that our situation in life is what we’ve earned from our choices. The same principle that governs the spiritual realm also governs the physical realm.
You only get back what you put out.
You only get what you’ve earned.
A man with some degree of wisdom once said: We live in the best of all possible worlds.
That’s another way of saying God’s justice is perfect.
If we live in the best of all possible worlds because God’s justice is perfect, then the world as we experience it is what we’ve earned.
Collectively, we’ve earned the wars, the famines, the pestilences, the rapes, the murders, the wealth, the poverty, and everything else that happens on Earth.
Individually, we’ve earned the debts, the jobs, the relationship hassles, the gifts, the tears, the losses, and even the illnesses.
If you believe that God’s justice is perfect, then you have to accept what is written above.
Many people have difficulty accepting that things are the way they are because of God’s perfect justice. They would rather blame others (including God) for their problems than to point a finger at themselves. This deflection of blame is the number one reason keeping people from turning back to God.
Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and yet both Adam and Eve were guilty by reason of their own free will choice.
God didn’t banish them from Paradise; they banished themselves.
What choices have you made that brought you to where you are now? What personal outcomes have you blamed on other people or on political systems or corporations?
Who or what are you blaming now?
God’s justice is perfect. We can only get back what we put out.
You can stop the pain, if you want to, by stopping the blame. You can stand before God and say: I’m only getting what I deserve, both good and bad.
And while you’re standing there, you can also thank God for always making the best of every situation. God loves us all the same, so he always mitigates our punishments, just as he always boosts our rewards.
That’s the God we serve. That’s our Dad. That’s his perfect justice.
We live in the best of all possible worlds.
We only get back what we put out.
If you want a good life, make good choices.
Amen.
HEAVEN ONE
BEDFORD, Nova Scotia, October 18, 2015 – Free will is a misnomer. God let us misname it so we’d have the notion that we’re ‘free’. Certainly, we are free, but only in the sense that we can either choose God’s way or not choose God’s way. That’s the extent of our ‘freedom’.
Frankly, I wish I didn’t have even that much freedom. I wish I didn’t have the option to choose against God’s way. Cold, hard, miserable firsthand experience has taught me that every time I choose against God’s way and every time I question him, I’m wrong, and I suffer for it.
This is where faith comes in. Faith doesn’t question. It no longer needs to question. Faith has progressed beyond questioning, in the same way as a child progresses from training wheels to no training wheels when learning to ride a bike. Faith declares: “I’m through with free will! I’m through with questioning!” Faith automatically chooses God’s way because those who choose faith have come to realize that God’s way is always – ALWAYS – best.
When we choose to live by faith, we suspend our free will. We still have free will, but we choose not to use it. It’s like the little kid who keeps the trainer wheels on her bike, even though she doesn’t need them anymore. She can use them if she wants to, but if she falls back to relying on her training wheels, she loses her balance and rides crooked again. She leans heavily to one side or the other, and her progress is slow and ungainly. She’s no longer cycling; she’s in a suspended state of falling.
We can fall back to choosing not to live by faith. We can resort to our squeaky rickety training wheels. We can doubt God. We can question his wisdom and find fault with his methods. But if we do so, we’re always wrong. If nothing else, that’s one thing we can count on – always being wrong if we choose against God.
I’m glad God gave me free will if only just to show me how inferior it is to faith. I’m glad he wants me to freely choose his way rather than to be forced or feel obligated to choose him. I’m glad he lets me make mistakes, and I’m glad he lets me suffer for it. I’m glad he lets me feel the consequences of my actions rather than glossing over my mistakes and pretending everything’s OK. It would be a lot easier for God just to gloss over our mistakes and let us get away with things. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with our tantrums and our sulking. But God is a perfect parent, so he does things the right way, even if they are the hard way for us and for him.
We suffer not because God is sadistic and not because we’re suffering for the good of other people – we suffer because we’ve made mistakes and chosen against God’s way, consciously or unconsciously. We suffer to the precise degree that we’ve earned that suffering — not one ‘ouchie’ more or less.
God’s justice is perfect.
If we’re smart (and God made us to be smart) – if we’re smart, we’ll learn from our mistakes. God is patient. He’s teaching us and he wants us to learn at our own pace. Heaven has very high behavioral standards. Paul gave us a partial list of the types of behaviors that don’t belong in Heaven, and warned us that those who practice those behaviors won’t make it there, no matter how big their congregation is or how much money they’ve donated to charity or how ‘good’ a person they consider themselves to be.
Heaven isn’t a “free gift”: it’s earned by our free will choices. We are rewarded with Heaven not because Jesus sacrificed himself as a repayment for Original Sin but because we’ve shown God, to his satisfaction, that we prefer his way to all others. We show him that we prefer his way by choosing his way, over and over and over and over and over again, to our dying breath.
We choose our way to Heaven. Jesus opened the door, but we have to make the choices that will bring us through that door. Just wanting to go through it is not enough. We have to show, by our free will choices, that we want to go through that door more than through any other door.
There is more of a curse in free will than there is a blessing. It’s best, if and when you can, to move beyond free will to the level of faith where you are no longer tempted to choose against God. Living by faith is how Jesus lived and how Paul lived and how Abraham lived and how Moses lived and how Noah lived. Be like them. Ditch your training wheels, get in the God groove, and roll your way on up to those pearly gates.
LEAVING NAZARETH
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 15, 2015 – Jesus didn’t have to leave Nazareth. He could have set himself up in a comfortable little bachelor pad, expanded his carpentry business, and found himself a wife (maybe even that hottie, Mary Magdalene). He could have had ten kids and sprouted a beer belly. He could have taken his place at the head of his family after the death of his father, growing more and more distinguished with age. He could have died a respected and revered elder of the Nazarene synagogue community.
He could have done all these things, but he chose not to.
It was a choice to do God’s will and become the Messiah. It wasn’t “predestination” or a foregone conclusion. It was a choice.
By faith, Jesus knew God’s will, and he did it. He didn’t have to leave Nazareth, but it was God’s will that he leave, so he did.
Leaving Nazareth was not a decision based on comfort. It was not comfortable for Jesus to come out as the Messiah. He left his comfort zone behind the day he performed his first public miracle. From then on, he was a marked man.
It’s not comfortable to live with a price on your head.
It wasn’t comfortable to fast for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. It wasn’t comfortable to live as an itinerant preacher. It wasn’t comfortable to sleep on the ground, night after night, or to go without meals. It wasn’t comfortable, as a believer, to be constantly surrounded by people who either didn’t believe or didn’t believe enough.
If there was any comfort in Jesus’ life during his earthly ministry, it was solely in prayer with his Father. Jesus knew his life as the Messiah would be uncomfortable, but he chose to do God’s will anyway. Jesus knew he’d be an outcast (even from his family and friends) and a target for extermination, but he chose to do God’s will anyway.
The life of the world is all about comfort. Jesus could have stayed in Nazareth and lived that life. But he couldn’t stay in Nazareth and do God’s will at the same time.
Neither can you.
We all have our own personal Nazareth. We have a life that we can live quite comfortably, thank-you-very-much, all the while knowing in the back of our mind that it is not God’s will for us. We can live our comfortable life quietly, quietly, making do with the crumbs from other people’s blessings and trying not to see the sadness in God’s eyes when he looks at us and thinks about how much more he could have given us, if we’d only been willing to step outside our comfort zone and leave Nazareth.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to see sadness in God’s eyes when he looks at me. I want my Heavenly Dad to look at me and say (like he said about Jesus): “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” I don’t want to forgo the forever pleasures of Heaven for some fleeting earthly comfort.
_____________________
If you’re born again, there comes a time when you must choose whether or not to leave Nazareth. No-one can tell you to go or not to go, not even God. The choice is entirely yours. However, leaving Nazareth IS the right choice, even if it means embracing a life of discomfort, poverty, ridicule, harassment, rejection and even murder at the hands of God’s enemies.
Leaving Nazareth means leaving the world behind but drawing closer and closer to God.
There are very few things that I know for sure, but one of them is this: There is no greater comfort in Heaven or on Earth than being as close as you can to God.
STRANGE CHRISTIANS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 12, 2015 – There’s a strange kind of Christian that is very much like the strange kind of Jews that Jesus railed at.
You know which Jews I’m talking about – the lipservers, the ones who considered themselves dyed-in-the-wool descendents of Abraham and who thought they had a guaranteed ticket to Heaven based on this heritage.
Jesus let them know that their expectations were in vain, and they hated him for it.
Jesus never railed against heathens and unbelievers. Not once. But he did rail a good deal against his own followers and against those who considered their salvation a done deal (sort of like the “once saved, always saved” crowd). The strange Christians of today spend a lot of time railing against the 21st century versions of heathens and unbelievers (Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, etc.) without seeming to realize that they are not the enemy. They are spiritually sick and demon-enslaved, yes, but they’re not the enemy.
Just like in Jesus’ day, our enemies are those who say they know God and are doing his will, when in fact they don’t know God and are doing the devil’s dirty work. Remember the parable of the ten virgins? Remember the parable of the goats that were shocked at being sent to Hell instead of Heaven?
These are strange Christians.
I went to school with a former atheist who became a strange Christian. He ‘converted’ in his late teens and since then has preached in various churches. He now has a full-time job as a pastor at a small local church. He records his sermons and uploads them onto the church’s website.
When I was born again, I wanted to go see this guy. He claimed to be born again, so I figured we must now be spiritual kin. But for one reason or another, God kept me from contacting him. After listening to a few of his sermons, I realized why: He isn’t really born again. He’s a professional preacher and strange Christian. He’s legalistic and (not surprising) a cheerleader for pressure-tithing into the church’s coffers, but he’s not born again. To God, he’s still a stranger.
Even worse, he thinks you should be paid for preaching the Word, just like you would for any other job. But preaching God’s Word is a privilege, not a job, and payment is in God’s blessings, not in money.
This is how you know a real Christian from a strange one: a real Christian does not demand financial remuneration for preaching the Word, whether as a pastor or a writer or a musician. A strange Christian, on the other hand, not only expects to be paid, but demands it and bases his or her “success” as a preacher on how much money he or she makes for selling God.
And regardless of their asking price, the actual amount is always the same: 30 pieces of silver.
Don’t be a strange Christian. Be like Jesus. Get to know and love God as your Dad. Never request or demand money for preaching the Word. Ditch the donation button.
And remember: The most bizarre phrase in all of Christendom is “retired minister”.
No real Christian ever retires.
We preach for free until we fall down dead.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 