Category: jesus

Posted in bible, grace, jesus

Two Mother’s Day essays for those who have a problem with Mother’s Day

Posted on by elizabethprata

Sunny Shell: Celebrating a Different Kind of Mother
But this picturesque vision of a mother is not true for everyone. Some of us grew up in homes with parents who were atheists, agnostics, followers of false religions, or even worse…some of you were raised in homes with mothers who professed to be a Christian, but neither her living nor teachings were in accord with God’s word and she defiled your mind and polluted your heart with the vulgar, self-centered, and obscene things of this world.

Please read more from the headline link

EPrata photo

The Federalist: Mother’s Day is the Worst
If you haven’t been paying attention to your calendar, reminder emails, or non-stop television advertisements, let me be the first to tell you that Mother’s Day is on Sunday. This is also, as it happens, the worst holiday of the year. Why? It Can Be Super Cruel. But some time ago a friend of mine told me that at her church, a family had bought flowers to give to mothers as they walked out of services. This is a lovely idea to honor the wonderful work that mothers do. But it can be incredibly difficult for women, like my friend, who have just miscarried a child and are distraught about it. Given how commonplace infertility is, and how uncomfortably painful it is to endure, it’s almost a guarantee that some rah-rah-motherhood fest will hurt women we love. Churches seem to be the primary location for this well-intentioned humiliation. Pastor Michael Schuermann says that “attending church on this particular Sunday is often an exercise in frustration, woe, even great shame brought on by the absence of longed-for children.” He has some advice for pastors:

Please read more at the headline link.

Matthew 19:29 assures us, “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” (KJV)

Posted in carl trueman, Isaiah 66, jesus, lament, prophecy, woe

Of church bulletins and the language of lament

Posted on by elizabethprata

I’m an Old Testament kind of woman. I love the Old Testament. I was shocked as I’ve grown in the faith to see that many Christians never read the OT. I’ve mentioned once that a pastor’s wife I knew used to carry a New Testament bible only to church. I’ve also mentioned that once, a Sunday School teacher laughed dismissively, saying, “I just take most of the Old Testament with a grain of salt”.

I’ve never understood that attitude that half of God’s word doesn’t count. I’ve also never understood the attitude that the ‘God of the Old Testament’ is wrath but the ‘God of the New Testament is love.’ Have they never read of Jesus’ wrath in revelation? Have they never read of His love in Hosea?

It is uncomfortable to read of His wrath, in OT or NT. God’s wrath makes me tremble and just to think I’ve displeased Him for one nanosecond makes my stomach clench. In this present Age of Grace we have rarely witnessed His Old Testament power, other than a monumental natural disaster or two. Usually, though, people deny it is Him behind that power, and they go on with their lives without giving Him praise and glory. But the Tribulation will be all-wrath, all the time. His power will be unleashed but not in the way it has been this past age, through grace and love, the cross of Jesus and salvation of sinners. His power will be unleashed in woes, anger, and death. They WILL know it is Him doing the miracles of disaster and woes. For example, Ezekiel 38:21-23,

“I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord God. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur. 23So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

Gill’s Exposition says,

“Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself,…. Show the greatness of his power, and the strictness of his justice and holiness, and glorify these, and all other of his perfections, in the destruction of the enemies of his people: and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord; Heathen nations shall now come to the knowledge of the true God, and his Son Jesus Christ, and of the Christian religion, and shall embrace and profess it”

God is God, and His wrath shows His perfections as much as does His love. Often, in my reading of the OT when I come across such a passage, I mourn. I lament my sin, the lost-ness of others, the destruction those who refuse to repent. I cry over the waste of opportunities to promote His glory. I cry real tears and I’m often grief-stricken over these things. I’m not bragging, but letting you know that sin is a palpable, real burden and weight that slays me in grief more often than not.

I was looking at the church bulletin cover from last Sunday’s worship service. I was thinking, once again, that the covers always, ALWAYS show some sunny-happy verse and smiling people. I wondered, where are the verses about His wrath? His anger? Where are the photos of people standing beside a tornado-destroyed house, a cancer ward, or a prophet in sackcloth and ashes? Never. We never see that. It irks me that we don’t.

Proverbs 19:20 is good. But why not also sometime print Proverbs 19:23, a couple of verses later?

“The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.”

When was the last time you read a church bulletin cover or heard a sermon on the fear of the Lord? Do we not need to see the whole counsel of God? Read verses extolling all His attributes? Yes. Why not some verses like Isaiah 6:5? Isaiah 10:1-2? Isaiah 30:1?

Or these, like Lamentations 3:55? Jonah 2:2? Psalm 130:1? Like, is no one ever miserable?

Then I came across Carl Trueman’s piece at Reformation 21 blog. It dovetailed nicely with my current thoughts on the lack of balance in the verses shown on bulletin covers, or the lack of balance of the woe verses as the basis for sermons. His piece is called “Miserable Christians Revisited“.

Some time ago, I wrote a short article entitled ‘What Can Miserable Christians Sing?’ Over subsequent years, I have had a lot of friendly correspondence as a result of that piece and it has been reprinted in numerous church newsletters and posted on various websites. Then, earlier this year Jonathan Leeman, of 9Marks Ministry, kindly asked if I would write a further piece, reflecting on the original article. This has now been published in the 9Marks Journal. Here is a taster:

 The article was intended to highlight what I saw as a major deficiency in Christian worship, a deficiency that is evident in both traditional and contemporary approaches: the absence of the language of lament. The Psalms, the Bible’s own hymnbook, contains many notes of lamentation, reflecting the nature of the believer’s life in a fallen world. And yet these cries of pain are on the whole absent from hymns and praise songs. The question that formed the article’s title was thus a genuine one: what is it in the hymnody of your church that can be sung honestly by the woman who has just lost her baby, the husband who has just lost his wife, the child who has just lost a parent, when they come to church on Sunday? The answer, I suggested, was the Psalms, for in them one finds divinely inspired words which allow the believer to express their deepest pains and sorrows to God.

You can read the whole piece here

The language of lament. Yes. Carl Trueman has it right. Woe, lament, and judgment.

I was reading Isaiah 66:23-24. Here are the verses,

God’s Final Judgments against the Wicked
…23″And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from sabbath to sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD. 24″Then they will go forth and look On the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be quenched; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”

Isaiah 66:23 is a verse of great blessing, but immediately after, in verse 24 there is a verse of great judgment. Verse 23 shows a monthly worship by representatives who constantly come to acknowledge Jesus as supreme upon the earth. In verse 24 there is a monthly and constant review of the judgment of God, “a perpetual sacrament of judgment”, as S. Lewis Johnson puts it.

If it pleased God to tell us that we will worship Him in love and submission; and likewise will view His eternal judgment of those whose worm will not die; to vividly show us that both these things will be constantly occurring, then what of man that we deny singing laments and printing the verses which also show these things?

Posted in apocalypse, God, jesus, movies, sin, threads, tribulation

(Updated) The most unrelentingly horrific and unsettling apocalyptic movie you will ever watch that comes the closest to what the Tribulation will be like: "Threads"

Posted on by elizabethprata

Update: Russia’s Putin oversees Russian nuclear forces exercise 

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Photo by Waiting for the Word, labeled for reuse

A couple of years ago in Sunday School, I was explaining the importance of understanding eschatology (last things). I was showing from scripture that pre-Tribulation rapture is biblical and is the only stance supported clearly by scripture. It makes a difference, I said, because firstly, it gives us hope and a goal to look forward to the return of Jesus for His bride without the fear of going through the Tribulation, and secondly, it gives us urgency to witness to unbelievers because the Tribulation is going to be horrific.

And yet, people still say that “I can make it through, after all I love Jesus.” Or, “It won’t be so bad if Jesus is on your side”, or other foolish comments like that. People have no clue as to how bad the Tribulation will be. Gaining a clear understanding of it is essential as is knowing where the Bride fits in the prophetic timeline.

After I got done explaining, one man who is of the ‘go along to get along, if you love Jesus then that’s all that counts, doctrine doesn’t matter” kind of guy said, “I’m a pan-tribber. It will all work out in the end.” Everyone in class laughed, and the five minutes I’d spent urging caution and due diligence to these matters evaporated.

I thought his was a craven rejection of the importance of Eschatology, something JESUS feels is important or He wouldn’t have spent the longest discourse in the entire bible speaking about it (Matthew 24). I thought that was a terribly laid back attitude and a failure to study of all the scriptures, prophecy included, because ALL SCRIPTURE is profitable, says 2 Timothy 3:16.

I’ve read Revelation many times and the horrors of God’s wrath can’t be overestimated. It gives me

shivers even to think about His unleashing of His wrath upon the unbelieving and rebellious world. The best book I’ve read on Revelation is John MacArthur’s “Because the Time Is Near“, which made me love God and fear Him all at once, even more. My breath was taken away at the verses and the explanation of His wrath and what lay ahead for people who delay too long in repenting and believing on Jesus.

Sometimes I get interested in a movie or a documentary that visually depicts a post-apocalyptic scenario. Not the Hollywood movies, but docu-dramas like BBC’s End Day. So, this week I was reading a headline that reminded me of one of the most chillingly accurate depictions of the rise of and aftermath of a global pandemic. Except I couldn’t remember the name of the documentary.

The docudrama was about the beginning of a flu epidemic that gained traction to become a near-extinction event. A Los Angeles family led by a doctor dad, are shown dealing with their growing understanding of how much of an extinction event it was, while the action was interspersed with interviews with actual doctors, sociologists, and the like describing the likely scenarios that will occur along the way as the pandemic grew. The film started with a cough and ended a full generation after society had collapsed.

I was thinking of that movie because I’d read a headline that antibiotic resistance has grown to be a present danger. It is no longer a future threat. I’ve been worried lately about antibiotic resistance and how that will impact the prophesied plagues set to overtake mankind during the Tribulation. So I read the article, still searching for that elusive documentary title about the pandemic. The report is from World Health Organization: (WHO)

A new report by WHO–its first to look at antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance, globally–reveals that this serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country. Antibiotic resistance–when bacteria change so antibiotics no longer work in people who need them to treat infections–is now a major threat to public health.

I had seemingly forever forgotten the name of that pandemic docudrama about that Los Angeles family, and I kept searching for the title for a long time. During my search I came across the well-remembered US armageddon films, The Day After and Testament. The Day After was touted as a program likely to cause nightmares and counselors were standing by. In truth, even then, I thought it was pretty sanitized. Testament affected me greatly because it never showed a bomb but showed a family suffering anyway from nuclear fallout hundreds of miles from where the bombs actually fell. Normal life just sort of ended, slowly and agonizingly.

The main character, acted by the magnificent Jane Alexander, was part of the reason for the movie’s impact on me. She did a wonderful job as a mother watching her children and her way of life die in front of her eyes. Yet even that film was pretty sanitized also as to the effects of nuclear war. Nuclear winter in either film was never shown, and people appeared kind of grubby but were still pretty clean looking. Desperation was prevalent but despair was absent.

My search for the title of the pandemic movie set in Los Angeles finally yielded paydirt. It is called “After Armageddon” and it was on The History Channel in 2010. I recommend it. The link brings you to the full movie at youtube.

I came across two other documentary type films illustrating a societal collapse, this time, from nuclear war. They were “The War Game” (1965) ( link to The War Game here) which won an Oscar for Best Documentary, though the film is fiction. The summary of the film at Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com) says “It was intended as an hour-long program to air on BBC 1, but it was deemed too intense and violent to broadcast. It went to theatrical distribution as a feature film instead. Low-budget and shot on location, it strives for and achieves convincing and unflinching realism.” The War Game was never shown on the BBC until a full 20 years after it was made, and a year after Threads was shown first. Threads is the movie I watched.

Threads was shown on the BBC in 1984 and is considered the ninth best UK television show of BBC history. The imdb.com summary states, “Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long term effects of nuclear war on civilization.”

I was a young adult in the 1980s and I vividly remember the nuclear fears. The aggressive USSR, President Reagan, the Iron Curtain, Strategic Defense Initiative (the space defense program dubbed ‘star wars’ by the populace). I thought positively that nuclear war was going to break out with the USSR and that was how I was going to die. It’s why the movies The Day After and Testament were so powerful. They fed exactly into the national psychosis about nukes. It was all the talk then.

When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Iron Curtain fell, the world drew a collective sigh of relief throughout the 1990s. Nuclear fears receded and after a short while seemed so distant and even silly. The stockpiles of nukes were forgotten as new fears arose: suitcase bombs and terrorists, and dirty bombs and pandemics.

I watched Threads last night. Before I watch any movie, I usually read up on the reviews. The reviews I could find were uniformly of the same opinion: it is the most accurate depiction of a nuclear war there has ever been put to screen. The external reviews and the internal user reviews (all 21 pages of them) uniformly said that the images stick with you and will give you nightmares. That the graphic nature of the life during and after nukes fall on Sheffield, Britain, are images that will stay with you forever. I thought I’d watch it anyway. Testament and The Day After had been manageable after all, and I was 30 years older than that now, to boot.

The film was done on a low budget but that just gives it a real feel. A young couple become engaged. She’s pregnant, and they buy a flat and begin planning their life together. Amid the backdrop of families meeting and wedding planning, pub visiting and family discussions ensuing, are newspaper, radio and television reports of a confrontation between the US and the USSR over Iran. The city is Sheffield, a target due to heavy industry located there at the time and a nearby military base.

The buildup to the moment the bombs drop was intense. In one scene, a low flying bomber almost buzzes the young man and his father who is outside gardening.

I needed a break and I decided to pause for a moment and see what the headlines were on Drudge. Imagine my shock when I saw this:

RUSSIAN BOMBERS, FIGHTER JETS ‘SEEN OVER CRIMEA’
From the May 04, 2014 edition of the Drudge Report.

Russia then. Russia now. We had a brief respite in the 90s, but Russia is back and the headlines we are reading about Russia and the Ukraine, the Jews evacuating, and the Crimea, are eerily similar to the ramp-up in Threads the days before the bombs fell. Both were about tensions in the Middle East and/or the Baltics, Iran v. Ukraine. Thirty years apart and nothing has changed- just as prophesied, Gog will instill in Rosh an evil thought and the Bear will rise to begin a holocaust war (Ezekiel 38-39).

In the movie, as each tv talking head, radio announcer, or print headline is shown, one action leads to a reaction, eventually the bombs fly one fine spring day and the world is never the same. Devastation occurs and millions die in the first salvos. The film starts a month before the bombs fly and ends 13 years later with the first after-nuclear war generation coming into their teenage years.

Here is the TV Tropes’ summary of the cycle that led to the all-out nuclear war:

“The escalation scenario that leads to Armageddon in the first place. After a coup in Iran, the Soviet Union invades to gain a toehold in the Middle East. The Americans send in paratroopers and set a deadline for withdrawal, and when the Soviets don’t back down they send bombers after their main staging base in Iran. The Soviets destroy most of the aircraft with a nuclear-tipped air defense missile. The Americans then destroy the base with a single battlefield nuke. In return the Soviets nuke the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, the Americans blockade Cuba, and after that it gets kind of hazy…”

Threads is without a doubt the most relentlessly hopeless, harrowing, ghastly movie of the genre. It spared no scene, it was accurate and unrelenting. As the website TV Tropes says, “To any would-be viewers: if you’re looking for a story with a happy or hopeful ending this movie is not the way to go, and a strong stomach is pretty much mandatory. There are no jump scares, the Body Horror is tame by the standards of modern SFX, and there is little Gore despite the ample opportunities the setting presents. And yet it is one of the scariest films of the 20th century…”

Death on an incomprehensible scale, and dark hopelessness was prevalent. Think: TRIBULATION. In the movie, millions upon millions were killed outright and in the first few months, millions more died of radiation sickness. Millions more after that of starvation and/or disease. Just like the Tribulation.

I could not help but think of the verses in the bible saying that they will be building and marrying eating and drinking when sudden wrath comes upon them. How one day people are at the pedestrian mall pushing babies in strollers and window shopping or ordering ale at the pub, and the next, the world turns upside down.

Though there are humans in the movie after the bombs fall there is no humanity. After, any vestige of cooperation, community or even love becomes a hindrance to the simple act of survival. The movie showed this as a realistic reaction to the loss of food, shelter, clothing, and normal life. By a decade later, even language had been reduced to grunts and monosyllabic words, because of the energy it takes simply to talk. And, what is there to say? It is a world devoid of love. As Lamentations reminds us, the ones who die right away are the lucky ones.

Happier were the victims of the sword
than the victims of hunger,
who wasted away, pierced
by lack of the fruits of the field. 
 (Lamentations 4:9)

THIS is as close to visualizing the Tribulation as one can come, and even this movie, bleak as it was, doesn’t show it all. The movie depicted “only” one issue, nuclear war and its effects and not the host of items the Tribulation will bring, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, fires, water as blood, etc, but… it shows enough. Nuclear war brings nuclear winter, famine, plague, societal collapse, and agricultural devastation. For two gripping and depressing hours, one can easily see the truth of Jesus’ words, “unless the days were cut short, no flesh would survive.” (Matthew 24:22). This is wrath. This is puny life, snuffed out under the mighty hand of God, who demands that sin be reckoned. As one film reviewer said, it is not a movie to be enjoyed, it is a movie to be endured. However, it is a necessary movie to watch.

I didn’t have nightmares but the movie did keep me up all night. The images and overall atmosphere in my heart kept me tossing and turning. Even today, a day later, I can see that it’s going to take a long time to forget the scenes. The woman at the pedestrian mall seeing the mushroom cloud and peeing herself, the husband in despair because he squandered the last bit of water, the foolishness of people protesting nuclear bombs when the war machine grinds on no matter what the populace says. The middle management local emergency guys with ties and clipboards buried under four stories of rubble, still trying to sort it all out. They died, entombed in their bunker, never having made one whit of difference. Desperation of the nurses at the hospital. The last scene.

Watch Threads, I dare you. It takes courage to stick with it. None of the people reviewing the film exaggerated. I’m not exaggerating. If you want to see what the people left behind will endure, this is as close as we can come cinematically to see the truth of God’s horrific wrath upon humanity’s sin and earth’s devastation as a result.

Sin is a terrible, terrible thing. God’s holiness and justice demands a response to it. We know that God is long-suffering and patient with His creation. One day, however, He will end His patience and determine that it is time to deal with sin on earth. He will rapture His bride first, but then, oh woes upon woes, He will unleash a holocaust that movies like Threads can only truly hint at. And the movie was bad enough. Praise our God for His patience and long-suffering. Praise Him that he brought you into the kingdom. Pray fervently for the lost and witness to them about the terrible effects of sin and the greatness of His forgiveness. Mercy and grace abounds in this present Messianic age. But it is ending, and fast. Please, please, consider these things.

The movie Threads is was on youtube.

Threads full movie

This link brings you to one of 12 parts of the movie Threads.

Posted in discern, holy spirit, jesus, mind, philip, study, understanding

Do you understand what you are reading?

Posted on by elizabethprata

“Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.” (Acts 8:26-31)

Above, The Monteleone Chariot is an Etruscan chariot dated to ca. 530 BC. It was originally uncovered at Monteleone di Spoleto and is currently part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Though about 300 ancient chariots are known to still exist, only six are reasonably complete, and the Monteleone chariot is the best-preserved. Wikimedia Commons

The above is a tremendous passage, full of meaning and worthy of lengthy study. I’ll mention a few things that caught my eye, but the central lesson at this moment, is this:

The mind versus the heart. Then versus now.

Philip was going along and heard a word from the Spirit. Philip obeyed Him. We have the closed canon now but we obey the Spirit-inspired word.

Here was a eunuch reading the text of the word of God. (Isaiah 53). Philip saw him and was directed to the eunuch by the Spirit. Philip obeyed, more than that, Philip ran. Today we don’t obey, or if we do, we don’t hasten to do so.

When Philip arrived at the chariot, he heard the eunuch reading Isaiah. Philip recognized:
–it was the word of God the eunuch was reading, and
–where within the word of God the eunuch was reading from.

Today, biblical illiteracy abounds so that some people don’t even recognize the word of God when it is spoken, or believe that non-words of God are from Him when they’re not.

Philip asked the Eunuch if he understood what he was reading. This is the key thought in this essay today.

“Do you understand what you are reading?”

Manet, The Reader, 1851.

In today’s world, people don’t ask that. They ask, “How did you feel about what you read?” Or, “How did it make you feel?” It’s considered rude and intolerant to ask a person if they understand. The word for understand in the context used is from Strong’s word concordance, “I am taking in knowledge, come to know, learn; aor: I ascertained, realized.”

People get huffy if they’re asked if they understand. You can just see the reaction, either verbal or mental- “What do you mean, understand? I’m not an idiot. Maybe YOU don’t understand!”

In addition, look at the Eunuch’s reaction. Philip didn’t know the Eunuch. He didn’t work for several years to establish a relationship with the Eunuch before talking of Godly things. He didn’t seek to meet the Eunuch’s felt needs. He didn’t make the Eunuch comfortable. He didn’t give him a donut. He simply asked him if he understood it. The Eunuch’s reaction wasn’t huffy or prideful. The Eunuch responded humbly,

“How can I, unless someone guides me?”

Today’s Christianity is all about experience and feelings. This is thanks to Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, and Joel Osteen, among others in the purpose-driven, seeker sensitive, word/faith movements. Osteen in particular is known for what Osteen calls a ministry of encouragement, but unlike Barnabas’ ministry of encouragement in persevering the Lord through the scriptures, Osteen is simply in the pop psychology biz in making people feel good about themselves through the heart. Osteen doesn’t make people even feel good about Jesus, he strives to make people feel good about themselves, turning their mind away from Him and focusing their feelings on themselves.

The Eunuch provides a good example of a man humbly submitting to the Spirit. He admitted his biblical inexperience and his need for a teacher. He acted on his need by inviting Philip up to the chariot.

Understanding the scriptures always leads to a positive action, either obedience, or salvation, or witnessing (Woman at the Well) or ministry. In this case, we see that the Eunuch was baptized immediately.

Lambert Sustris (1515–1591) The Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch
by the Deacon Philip

The bible is replete with verses that tell us to learn with our mind. Our minds are being renewed, (Romans 12:2.) Difficulties in understanding parables such as in Matthew 13:11-13, and symbols, such as in Revelation 17:9, call for a mind with wisdom, says the verse. We need to understand with our mind, before we decide how we feel about it with our heart. And even at that juncture, feelings are often murky and misleading. Yet so many of today’s bible studies involve circumventing the mind and going straight to feelings, based on experience. And you see where that has gotten us.

The next time you’re in a bible study group, ask the question that Philip did, “Do you understand what you are reading?” If you don’t want to go that far, then ask “Do I understand what I am reading?” That’s a good question to ask anyway. Don’t let the discussion revolve around feelings launched by questions such as “How do you feel about that?” with responses given through personal experiences, therefore coming to a conclusion that is what the verse means.(I.E., ‘I experienced it, therefore it is true.’)

Luke 24:45 says that when Jesus appeared to His disciples post-crucifixion, “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures”. He called the men of Emmaus foolish and slow of heart for not understanding.

How you feel about what you read is of no real consequence. Feelings are temporal, ephemeral, and often faulty. Why, even God allows the wicked to rest in a feeling of security. (Job 24:23). The security they feel is unprofitable for them because it is a false feeling. Don’t trust feelings about scripture, but seek to know, to understand, to comprehend. Feelings aren’t bad, but we learn the word of God through our mind. It is study which renews your mind. After that, you gain more and more clarity.

We all have the same guide that the Eunuch had, and in fact that Philip had: the Holy Spirit. He guides us into all truth. (John 16:13). We must study personally and also study under a guide or a teacher or a pastor so the scriptures will become understandable to us. Do you understand what you are reading? Ask the Spirit to deliver wisdom to you, He will do so without reproach. (James 1:5).

Posted in encouragement, jesus, praise, revelation

"…and his face was like the sun shining in full strength"

Posted on by elizabethprata

In the spring and summer, the sun is a position that when it rises in the morning, it bursts over the trees and its rays shoot down the road.

I live at the end of a small one-way street. Looking east, the sun rises over the tree line for a few minutes, brightening the sky. It’s coming!

Suddenly the sunrays burst out and stream down the road, lighting all the bushes and pastures along the way

The brightness is incredible, reflecting off everything the sun rays touch. The bushes burst into focus, each leaf evident in the gold adornment

It’s as if the curtain of golden light is being raised- you can see half the bush illuminated as the sun rises higher and higher, the shadow line sinking fast to the ground as the illumination is almost complete

I always love that moment, when the sun comes up and the first light shows itself. What will it be like when we’re called home in the rapture, and we see the full light of the glory of Jesus?!

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Revelation 1:12-16)

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Revelation 21:22-23)

All praise to the Lamb, the Light of the world!!

Posted in flood, heaven, jesus, jewel, mineral, young earth

Completely new mineral discovered: Putnisite

Posted on by elizabethprata
Source

It’s purple, translucent and goes by “putnisite.” Discovered in Western Australia, putnisite contains the unusual elemental combination of strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen and is notable for its dissimilarity from other, known families of minerals.

Salon.com explains,
It’s purple and pretty and composed of cube-like crystals just 0.5 mm in size. But what really makes putnisite, the world’s newest mineral, truly unique is that nothing like it has ever been discovered before. “Most minerals belong to a family or small group of related minerals, or if they aren’t related to other minerals they often are to a synthetic compound, but putnisite is completely unique and unrelated to anything,” said Dr. Peter Elliott, lead author of a new study detailing the discovery in Mineralogical Magazine. … Putnisite is named after German mineralogists Andrew and Christine Putnis for their contributions to mineralogy. What’s got scientists so intrigued by the mineral is its composition. It’s a rare combination of strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen that’s completely distinct from any of the other 4,000 known minerals in the world.

I love science. But I know Who the author of science is, God. He made the earth and everything in it. (Genesis 1:1, Acts 17:24, Hebrews 1:10). Jesus sustains it. (Hebrews 1:3). Insofar as man can, with his limited mental faculties (compared to God’s), he strives to discover his origins and learn about this creation in which we dwell.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20)

I love minerals. In Maine, as with many other states, there is a Mineralogical Society. Membership allows us entry to mining sites where the owners allow us to sift through their tailings. We often went on weekend expeditions with shovel and chisel and bucket in hand, to explore and try to find amethyst, quartz, tourmaline, beryl, and other gems hidden in the earth. In Maine you can also pan for gold, it exists in the rivers. But it was always too cold for us, so we usually only went on the rock hunting expeditions. Here are a few samples of some of the minerals we found.

Amethyst, quartz. EPrata photo
Quartz and Smokey quartz. EPrata photo

In Texas, we camped on the Woodward Ranch, where the teacher/geologist owner Trey Woodward gave you a shovel, a bucket, a pick and a hardy screwdriver, and let you hunt for red plume agate and opal. You brought it back and he’d tell you what is really good and what’s junk, and whatever you wanted to keep, he weighed and you pay a nickel a pound. This was in the 1990s. Trey Woodward died of cancer a few years ago.

 These are some of the things we found on the Woodward Ranch.

EPrata photo

Geodes are fun, They look like a dull rock, but if you split them open, there is a world of minerals in there!

EPrata photo

EPrata photo

EPrata photo

In Jasper Beach, Maine there are a billion billion jasper and rhyolite stones, tumbled to a smooth sheen and glistening in the Atlantic waters at the edge of a totally stone beach.

It’s the minerals in the granite stone that makes it sparkle. EPrata photo

Weather.com had an interesting list of the “8 Biggest Mysteries of Our Planet“

1. Why are we all wet? Scientists think Earth was a dry rock after it coalesced 4.5 billion years ago. So where did this essential chemical, H2O, come from?

2. What’s down there in the core? The stuff of legend and lore, Earth’s core has long fascinated writers as well as scientists. For a while, the composition of Earth’s unreachable core was a solved mystery — at least in the 1940s. With meteorites as proxy, scientists gauged the planet’s original balance of essential minerals, and noted which were missing. The iron and nickel absent in Earth’s crust must be in the core, they surmised. But gravity measurements in the 1950s revealed those estimates were incorrect. The core was too light. Today, researchers continue to guess at which elements account for the density deficit beneath our feet.

 3. How did the moon get here? Did a titanic collision between the Earth and a Mars-size protoplanet form the moon? There’s no universal consensus on this giant impactor theory, because some details don’t pan out.

 4. Where did life come from? Was life brewed on Earth or sparked in interstellar space and delivered here on meteorites? The most basic life components, such as amino acids and vitamins, have been found on ice grains inside asteroids and in the most extreme environments on Earth. Figuring out how these parts combined to form the first life is one of biology’s biggest hurdles…[and a link brings you to the 7 theories on how life began…and so on and et cetera, always learning yet never above to come to knowledge of the truth…]

5. Where did all the oxygen come from? Understanding the shift to an oxygen-rich Earth is a key factor in decoding the history of life on our planet.

 6. What caused the Cambrian explosion? The appearance of complex life in the Cambrian, after 4 billion years of Earth history, marks a unique turning point, said Donna Whitney, a geologist at the University of Minnesota. Suddenly there were animals with brains and blood vessels, eyes and hearts, all evolving more quickly than during any other planetary era known today. [For another take on a biblical explanation for the Cambrian explosion, see below]

7. When did plate tectonics start? Thin plates of hardened crust knocking about Earth’s surface make for beautiful mountain sunsets and violent volcanic eruptions. Yet geologists still don’t know when the plate tectonics engine revved up. [The FLOOD. Genesis 7:6, Genesis 10:25]

8. Will we ever predict earthquakes? At best, statistical models can tease out a forecast of future earthquake probability, similar to weather experts who warn of coming rain. But that hasn’t kept people from trying to predict when the next one will hit — with no success. [Prediction: There will be an earthquake in Jerusalem killing 7000 and a tenth of the city will collapse. This will happen the same hour the Two Witnesses are resurrected and ascend to heaven. Revelation 11:13.]

A summary of  flood geology
Other creationists accept the existence of the geological column and believe that it indicates a sequence of events that might have occurred during the global flood. Institute for Creation Research creationists such as Andrew Snelling, Steven A. Austin and Kurt Wise take this approach, as does Creation Ministries International. They cite the Cambrian explosion — the appearance of abundant fossils in the upper Ediacaran (Vendian) Period and lower Cambrian Period — as the pre-Flood/Flood boundary, the presence in such sediments of fossils that do not occur later in the geological record as part of a pre–flood biota that perished and the absence of fossilized organisms that appear later (such as angiosperms and mammals) as due to erosion of sediments deposited by the flood as waters receded off the land. Creationists say that fossilization can only take place when the organism is buried quickly to protect the remains from destruction by scavengers or decomposition. They say that the fossil record provides evidence of a single cataclysmic flood and not of a series of slow changes accumulating over millions of years.

Here are some fossils I found beautiful:

EPrata photo

EPrata photo

I often wondered, as I looked at my fossils, what killed them. Now I know.

It’s fun to speculate on the earth’s mysteries. It was a blast looking for minerals in western Maine, in Downeast Maine, in Texas, and all the other places we searched, looking for clues as to how the earth works. We loved to unearth its beauty- literally.

Please note that for the born again Christian the scientific mysteries are different than the mysteries the unsaved scientist will ponder. If one does not have God as the first cause, one will always wonder about the ensuing causes. So, another new mineral was discovered, and scientists cannot figure out why it is unrelated to any other mineral… When this happens they begin to reassess once again what they know, and what they don’t know. I’m glad I know what I know. God created the heavens and the earth…

And the minerals that we know, like gold and pearl, we will see in heaven and they will be beautiful. (Revelation 21:19-21). The minerals we don’t know but we will discover in heaven will be beautiful also. But the most beautiful gem of all, in the entire universe, is Jesus.

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. … And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Revelation 21:10-11, 23)

Posted in encouragement, high priest, jesus

It feels like there’s no one left who is a true believer…

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

EPrata photo

Apostasy is a hard, hard thing, For anyone who is righteous, seeing loved ones succumb to the sway of a false doctrine, or follow a false teacher, it is a torture to the soul and a agony to the mind and a hardship on the soul. I see a Blackaby book on a pastor’s desk and I worry. I hear a woman refuse to acknowledge Joyce Meyer is false “because she preaches straight from the bible” and I mourn, I see a woman wear a “Walk to Emmaus” tee shirt and I fear. Encountering these things in my daily routine is like having a hot nail driven into my head. I am not exaggerating.

It’s not to say that these people or any person who reads a book, accepts a teacher or participates in a retreat once is an apostate. I participated in both the Experiencing God study by Henry Blackaby and a Beth Moore Living Proof weekend and a DVD retreat, but in doing so alerted me to the falseness of their teachings. It gave me a close-up view of what it was that troubled my soul so much. That’s what false teaching does, it either grieves the soul and alerts one to its falsity or it entrenches one deeper into their lack of discernment. I worry because I know when someone doesn’t or won’t see the falseness of a particular doctrine or teacher, the false teacher or a false doctrine has successfully taken root into their mind. Satan won’t let that go. Unless they refute it and repent, it will grow like gangrene. That is the way of things. (2 Timothy 2:17; Acts 14:2)

It feels sometimes like there are hardly any people with discernment left. It feels like so many friends and family are falling away. I know from your emails and blog comments that many of you are in locations where there literally are no good churches or where false teaching abounds. Doesn’t it feel like were the only ones, sometimes!

Here is where we praise the gracious Lord for His examples for us in scripture. We are not alone! Elijah thought he was alone! Jeremiah was tortured by the apostasy around him and in his lifetime, judgment came! Noah preached 120 years and only had 7 converts! Isaiah was told to prophesy until there was literally no one left!

“And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”… God assured him, Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:9-10, 18)

My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent, for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. (Jeremiah 4:19)

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. …These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:5-6, 9)

“Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste,” (Isaiah 6:11)

In the New Testament, imagine there being no ‘church down the road’ you could switch to when apostasy is so rampant in your church you have to leave. The Corinthians were having chaotic services, drunken Lord’s Suppers, and immorality and sexual impurity were a problem. But that was the ONLY church. Can you imagine how the few pure and holy Corinthians felt?

I’ve seen a massive defection from the faith since 2008. I’ve also seen a horrific decline in discernment since then too. The rise in apostasy to my mind and according to how I interpret 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is that the time is near when the rapture will occur. The defections of millions from the faith and the fast tsunami of apostasy in even evangelical denominations shows this, in my opinion. The curtain on this age is coming down, and fast.

Each of the prophets named above walked closely with God. Even in times of terrible apostasy when they were literally the only ones in their sphere left who were faithful. They were human, to be sure. Elijah suffered a bout of depression. Jeremiah was tearful and mourning much of the time. The key is, they clung to God.

Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:9b)

Take encouragement! The Lord Jesus is near to us. At the time of His incarnation, there were few faithful ones. His religion had been turned into a mockery. They rejected His words while clamoring for His miracles. They wanted His ‘stuff’ but not Him for Himself. He knew apostasy! He knows the pain we feel when people reject our precious Jesus and go astray! Don’t give up the fight!

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)

He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. (Hebrews 5:2)

Pray for those who are ignorant and going astray. Pray for yourself in your weariness and sadness. Jesus is with us. It is good.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Posted in discernment, jesus

Sayings and mottos that sound pious but aren’t. #5: You’re so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good

Posted on by elizabethprata

Yesterday I wrote about adopting a heavenly perspective. I think about heaven all the time and I believe it is important for our Christian walk to do so. In addition, it gets under my craw when I hear people say “He’s so heavenly minded that he’s of no earthly good.”

Some sayings sound legitimate on their surface. They sound pious. They sound biblical. Like this one: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Only problem is, that one isn’t in the bible. At all.

It is sometimes hard to tell what truly is Christian and what merely sounds Christian. Charles Spurgeon wisely said, “Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.” So what sayings are right, and what sayings are almost right (AKA ‘wrong’)? Let’s look at the following sayings which have become such cliches.

Some of these mottoes are:

1. “Let go and let God“
2. “I don’t use commentaries because they’re men’s wisdom. I only use God’s Word when I study.”
3. “We can’t know for certain what the bible means, I’m not that smart“
4. “Pray big because we have a big God.”
5. “He’s so heavenly minded he’s no earthly good”

For this last piece in the series about falsely pious sayings, I’ll let Randy Alcorn do the talking. He was a pastor for 13 years and he started Eternal Perspective Ministries. He has written 40-odd books, many of them on heaven. One of his most famous books is a scriptural look at Heaven. Another book I’ve enjoyed of his is “We Shall See God“, a devotional book of Charles Spurgeon’s classic thoughts on heaven, interspersed with explanations from Alcorn.

His essay is free to reprint, according to Mr Alcorn’s website, as long as the identifying information is at the bottom. Here is Randy Alcorn on being heavenly minded and whether that’s any earthly good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. — Colossians 3:1-2

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. — C. S. Lewis

(You can also listen to the 5-minute audio version of this blog, excerpted from the 50 Days of Heaven audio book.)

Over the years, a number of people have told me, “We shouldn’t think about Heaven. We should just think about Jesus.”

This viewpoint sounds spiritual, doesn’t it? But it is based on wrong assumptions, and it is clearly contradicted by Scripture.

Colossians 3:1-2 is a direct command to set our hearts and minds on Heaven. We set our minds on Heaven because we love Jesus Christ, and Heaven is where he now resides. To long for Heaven is to long for Christ. To long for Christ is to long for Heaven, for that is where we will be with him. That’s why God’s people are “longing for a better country” (Hebrews 11:16).

In Colossians 3:1, the Greek word translated “set your hearts on” is zeteo, which “denotes man’s general philosophical search or quest.” The same word is used in the Gospels to describe how “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10, emphasis added). Zeteo is also used to describe how a shepherd looks for his lost sheep (Matthew 18:12), a woman searches for a lost coin (Luke 15:8), and a merchant searches for fine pearls (Matthew 13:45). It is a diligent, active, single-minded pursuit. Thus, we can understand Paul’s admonition in Colossians 3:1 as follows: “Diligently, actively, single-mindedly pursue the things above”—in a word, Heaven.

The verb zeteo is in the present tense, suggesting an ongoing process. “Keep seeking Heaven.” Don’t just have a conversation, read a book, or listen to a sermon and feel as if you’ve fulfilled the command. If you’re going to spend the next lifetime living in Heaven, why not spend this lifetime seeking Heaven so you can eagerly anticipate and prepare for it?

The command, and its restatement, implies there is nothing automatic about setting our minds on Heaven. In fact, most commands assume a resistance to obeying them, which sets up the necessity for the command. We are told to avoid sexual immorality because it is our tendency. We are not told to avoid jumping off buildings because normally we don’t battle such a temptation. Every day, the command to think about Heaven is under attack in a hundred different ways. Everything militates against thinking about Heaven. Our minds are set so resolutely on Earth that we are unaccustomed to heavenly thinking. So we must work at it.

What have you been doing daily to set your mind on things above, to seek Heaven? What should you do differently?

Perhaps you’re afraid of becoming “so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly good.” Relax—you have nothing to worry about! On the contrary, many of us are so earthly minded we are of no heavenly or earthly good. As C. S. Lewis observed,

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.

We need a generation of heavenly minded people who see human beings and the earth itself not simply as they are, but as God intends them to be. Such people will pass on a heritage to their children far more valuable than any inheritance.

We must begin by reasoning from God’s revealed truth. But such reasoning will require us to use our Scripture-enhanced imaginations. As a nonfiction writer and Bible teacher, I start by seeing what Scripture actually says. As a novelist, I take that revelation and add to it the vital ingredient of imagination.

In the words of Francis Schaeffer, “The Christian is the really free man—he is free to have imagination. This too is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.”

Schaeffer always started with God’s revealed truth. But he exhorted us to let that truth fuel our imagination. Imagination should not fly away from the truth but upon it.

You may be dealing with great pain and loss, yet Jesus says, “Be of good cheer” (John 16:33, nkjv). Why? Because the new house is nearly ready for you. Moving day is coming. The dark winter is about to be magically transformed into spring. One day soon you will be home—for the first time.

Until then, I encourage you to find joy and hope as you meditate on the truth about Heaven revealed in the Bible.

Why not ask God to make your imagination soar and your heart rejoice?

Thank you, God, for the gift of imagination. In a world where ideas are so often grounded in quicksand and are contrary to sound doctrine, help us to be firmly based in your Word. Help us to be saturated in its teaching. Thank you for promising us “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” in your eternal Kingdom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries, 39085 Pioneer Blvd., Suite 206, Sandy, OR 97055, 503-668-5200, http://www.epm.org

Posted in encouragement, jesus, perspective

Adopting a heavenly perspective

Posted on by elizabethprata

Back in the 1990s my immediate and my extended family used to rent a house on an Island once a year. We’d converge from three or four different states on this rental and enjoy a week together at the beach. Of course this was an event that was eagerly and fervently anticipated. We’d email and telephone back and forth about our plans once we got there. I would look at the photos of the rental house at least once a week. I’d google for maps of the place and look at all the roads leading to and from and around the house. How far was it from town? What restaurants were nearby? Where was the bike rental place? There was no detail spared in looking up and anticipating our visit.

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:2).

I was talking with a friend the other day about a concert she was planning to attend. I got excited for her, because it was a big concert. We both laughed as I asked if she looked at a schematic of the auditorium to see where she and her companions would be sitting. Looking at photos of the venue, looking up biographies of the men in the band. It was exciting to think of the big event, and no detail was spared in all the discussion about what the concert may be like.

Do you ever have excited conversations with friends or family about a big upcoming event you’re really looking forward to? You know you have!

Why don’t we do that with heaven? We talk more about upcoming concerts and cabins than we do heaven! But heaven is a fact. It is real, and it is there. We are definitely going. Even the concert could be canceled or the rental cabin could burn down, but the fact of our going to heaven if we are saved by His grace is real and unalterable. As a matter of fact we are already citizens of heaven!

You would not believe how many people look at me strangely because I talk excitedly about the place Jesus is preparing for us. Or remark on the trees lining the River of Life, or the color of the emerald rainbow surrounding God’s throne, or meeting up with Noah or David or Hannah and walking with them, or any number of things that the bible describes as the future promise. Being in heaven with Jesus is THE MOST EXCITING THING in the entire universe, it awaits every Christian, and yet few talk about it! We talk about the big concert or the summer cabin with more excitement than we discuss the glories of the place Jesus is preparing for us.

It is important to have an eternal perspective. It is the secret to contentment, because it puts earthly trials in their place. It ignites hope. It soothes the heart. Adopt an eternal perspective because it is exhorted in the bible for us to do so.

“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

We do this in several ways. Have an active prayer life. Talking to Jesus sets the mind on the things above, because that is where He is.

Also, read the bible, and focus on the passages where it describes the things to come in concrete terms. Like the passages in Ezekiel after chapter 39 when the Millennial Kingdom is set up (the kingdom will be on earth and limited to a time of 1000 years but we ourselves will be glorified by then and living in an eternal body). Read Revelation 21 and 22. Read the passages in Corinthians and Thessalonians describing the glorified body.

The truth of the word will permeate your heart and mind and this sets you up for thinking of the things above. (A side note: AVOID all books describing heaven tourism, books like “Heaven Is For Real” and such nonsense. Stick with the words God gave us in describing His holy habitation, they are true and trustworthy).

Then, think on these things. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8). And what is more pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent than His heaven and our home?

Finally, talk about these things. When I speak of making a date with a friend in heaven and going to see David or Noah or Hannah, they look at me funny. But these names are not just bible characters, but real people dwelling in heaven in real worship right now. When the time of glorification comes, they will have real bodies, as we will, and we will worship and sing and walk and talk and eat and live together! It is a fact. Talking about heaven and the bible’s men and women as real people whom we will see makes it all the more real for those with whom we are having the conversation. (And for those listening to us!) 

If we’re not embarrassed to spout on and on about the cruise we’re going to take in a few months, then what is so embarrassing about talking about what our place in heaven might look like, or the fruits of the trees of life lining the river, or the pillars of the temple shaking as the cherubim sing HOLY HOLY HOLY? Those things are more real than the cruise, which hasn’t happened and might not, while God is in heaven on His throne right now! (Revelation 4:1-5)

“If we would remember that all the trees of earth are marked for the woodsman’s ax, we should not be so ready to build our nests in them.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Pray, read, think, and talk about heaven. You’ll find your happier, more content, more able to endure hardship, and your re-oriented perspective will excite the brethren and please Jesus. What’s to lose? It’s a win-win all around.