Do You Care About Heaven?

    Should it matter to us now what heaven will be like?
    I should say so! After hearing and reading from both church and non-church people what their assumptions are of heaven, having a Biblical understanding of what God says our ultimate home will be like, does matter. If heaven is really the place (or lack thereof) that many people think it is, it does not offer much incentive for people to want to find out how to get there. After all, the Bible describes it for a reason! One, is certainly to offer hope to the believer (which it only does when understood as a “good place” to be), the other is to be an attraction for those not yet on their way.
    And if it is not important for us to know what heaven is like, then the Bible would not offer so much information about it. A lot of people don’t even know that the Bible does tell us a lot about what heaven will be like. But it does!
    Christian philosopher and physicist Blaise Pascal wrote, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.”
    I think he’s right. We all seek happiness. But listen to what the great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, said early in his life regarding his pursuit of happiness, “It becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven… to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labor for or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end and true happiness?” In a set of resolutions that he wrote for himself as a young man, he determined, “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can.”
    Pascal and Edwards both had a wise handle on a God-given pursuit for all of us, happiness in the afterlife. After all, that is the ultimate of happiness. A few cheap thrills in the here and now will be over in a flash. But heaven is forever!
    But will it be a place of happiness? Or will it be eternal boredom?
    Because of the misinformation that is out there, largely circulated in the church world, lots of people think the latter. But in this series, HEAVEN (starting on Easter Sunday at The Bridge), we will discover that those who think so are dead wrong!
    I want to encourage you, be here for every message. Over the course of the next four weeks, with a Q & A format, I’m going to use the Bible to answer the most common questions about heaven.
    You are going to love this series! Join me at The Bridge as we learn what God wants us to know about Heaven.

Have You Been Smoltified?

    Salmon are amazing creatures. Several years ago, our family vacationed in Alaska in August, the prime season for salmon migration. I was enthralled with the sight of rivers, so teeming with salmon swimming upstream, that they gave the appearance of white water rapids, when in fact it was all salmon creating the disturbances in the water.
    Salmon are born as fresh water fish. As they grow, they become more streamlined in their appearance, their color changes, their endocrine activity increases, and their gills are altered to allow for a greater tolerance to sodium and potassium, all the while they are migrating downstream towards the ocean. Through a metabolic process called, “smoltification”, they adapt to life in saltwater. Scientists still aren’t sure of all of the biological intricacies involved, but somehow these freshwater fish not only learn to survive in saltwater, they actually become saltwater creatures who thrive in their new environment. Once adapted to salt water, fresh water kills them.
    And yet they return to the fresh water to spawn, reproduce, and thereby, die. The freshwater is death to them because it is no longer their home environment. They become creatures of the sea.
    Next week, Easter Sunday, I will be launching our next sermon series: “HEAVEN.” I’m excited about it and I hope you are as well. Because you see, while we live here, this earth’s current environment is death to us. None of us are going to get out alive. But God invites us all on a spiritual smoltification journey to transform us into creatures that thrive in another world...heaven. Those who are transformed by the resurrected life of Jesus are forever changed. This world, with all it has to offer, will never be our ultimate home. For the Christian, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).
    C.S. Lewis said, “If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
    This world is not our home, it will not satisfy. We were created for something better. We were made to be in the presence of and in fellowship with God. For those of us who have been reconciled to Him through Jesus, heaven is waiting. And only then will we realize all that it means to be fully human and fulfilled in our existence.
    But not everyone has this hope. You live near, work with, and are related to others who are still trying to find satisfaction in a world that only ends in death. If you’ve experienced the new birth that God offers through Jesus, why not eagerly share it with others? A great opportunity comes this week with Easter Sunday approaching. Let’s make every effort to bring others to hear what the Bible says about heaven, and the good news of it’s availability to them.
    Invite everyone you know this Easter!

Chavez is Dead, Jesus is Alive

    In a vain attempt to keep him “lifelike”, the body of Hugo Chavez, like the bodies of many other totalitarian heads of state before him, will be embalmed and placed on permanent (sort of) display in a glass sarcophagus near his presidential palace. Most are familiar with the display of Russia's Vladimir Lenin in Moscow's Red Square. Others include Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong (China), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), and Kim Il Sung (North Korea).
    Russian historians say that Lenin and Stalin’s bodies on display have given current leaders a sense of legitimacy. I’m sure the same could be said of Mao, Minh and Kim and their successors. But even with these regimes, over time, their influence will dissipate and their memory will fade.
    And with the best of scientific embalming practices, the “lifelikeness” of embalmed bodies also fades over time. CNN recently reported that Lenin and Stalin are both looking waxy and plasticky. And no matter how they look, these guys are dead. Just as dead as the guys buried under ground. I added “sort of” to “permanent” in my opening sentence, because eventually, even the best of embalmed bodies will be reduced to dust.
    The one man who really changed the world was never put on display. His enemies would have wanted that. But they couldn’t, because his body didn’t stay dead. Jesus defeated death, he rose again. We will see him again! But it won’t be in a lifeless state sealed in a glass case, looking waxy and plasticky. We will see him in the flesh, alive, vivacious, interacting with us, loving us, receiving us!
    That’s the celebration season we are entering into. The greatest holiday of the Christian calendar, because it is the reason we are Christian. It is the resurrection of Jesus that is the foundation of our faith. His death provided for our forgiveness. His resurrection provides for our eternal life.
    He is not dead! He is risen!

Still Visually Impaired

    Imagine complete and total darkness, the inability to see anything, and then...light, images, sight!
    A biomedical engineer at the University of Southern California has developed a process using a tiny HD camera attached to eyeglasses, which wirelessly transmits to a sheet of electrodes that are implanted on the retina, to give partial sight to some who otherwise would be totally and completely blind. It’s already being used successfully on a number of candidates in Europe, where it has been approved for experimentation on humans. It is currently being considered by the FDA here in the states.
    The device, which costs about $150,000, is not perfect, and is still under development, but those using it are grateful for the benefits it has brought to their lives. Their newfound sight enables them to distinguish between dark and light, outlines of figures and persons, as well as distinguishing between some colors. A pedestrian is now able to differentiate between a curb and a sidewalk, make out the lines of a crosswalk, and perceive other pedestrians as well as moving vehicles.
    One recipient said, “Without the system, I wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. When you have nothing, this is something. It’s a lot.”
    Of course, they are hoping that this will develop into a full blown device that gives sight as clear as those who are not visually impaired. But for now, those who have the device are happy for what they can see.
    That reminds me of Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 13, “For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12 HCSB). Mirrors in the ancient world were not like today, but they gave a blurry and often distorted reflection (polished metal). Paul was letting us know that incomplete data is our reality in this life. But he was also promising perfect vision in the eternal state, something he and his original readers have been enjoying now for 2,000 years.
    I can see the hand of God in this life, but it is indistinct. I certainly can’t make out everything and there are many things that I know will never make sense in this life. But I’m a bit like the guy wearing the electronic eyesight apparatus. I know I’m missing a lot of data that’s out there. But I’m glad I get to see what I do.
    So let’s be grateful for what God does reveal, trust him for what he does not, and look forward to the day when everything will snap into focus and make perfect sense.