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I was talking to my High School Bible class the other day and I asked them what they thought Heaven might be like? I didn’t get much of a response.
When I read descriptions of Heaven it’s like streets of Gold, gates of pearl and walls of precious stones. Plus activities like worship and singing before the throne of God. For me I can’t get too excited about walking on a street paved with gold and although I like to sing after a while I get tired of singing. Plus… I know some people who don’t even like to sing.
I asked my class… what would be the perfect Heaven for you? What would you like to be doing up there?
One said… I would play my guitar every day. Others talked about playing video games all day long. I guess for me it would be playing Volleyball or eating great food or laughing or spending time with loved ones.
Here’s the thing… a lot of those descriptions about Heaven in the scriptures are figurative… not literal. God uses figurative descriptions to describe immeasurable value in timeless terms that humans can understand.
I told my class that all those fun things we like to do now and the enjoyment those things bring us… that whatever God has planned for us in Heaven… it will be 1000 times funner… maybe a million times.
Have faith in God that he knows how to reward his children. The good things of earth are merely a foreshadowing of those things that God is going to surprise us with in Heaven
“If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.
The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.” Deut 13
Usually we know if a Prophet is truly from God because his prophecies come true. Obviously if a Prophet’s prophecies don’t come true he is not from God. Makes sense right? Not so fast…
This passage appears to tell us that God can inspire a Prophet to give a mixed message as a test for us.
So imagine this… God inspires a prophet to tell us that God will raise up a T. Rex who will rise up out of Corpus Christi Bay and smash up the Selena Auditorium. Of course we all laugh but then one day a big old T. Rex does exactly that.
The next day the prophet says we must all become Muslims.
The true follower of God will say… I know that T. Rex tore up Selena’s Auditorium and I can’t explain it but I cannot reject my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and will wait for God to explain it all in Heaven one day.
Same thing with Preacher’s today… some of them may look good and may sound good and may do a lot of good but they could just be a test from God to see if you are going to follow a man or God’s Holy written Word… the Bible. How are you going to know what to do and who to follow if you don’t know the Bible?
“Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.
But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.” Deut. 14
The above passage explains the Old Testament instruction of tithing. Of course remember that Israelites were commanded to give back 1/10 of whatever their blessings were to the Lord. There was a problem though… they were to carry their 1/10 of grain, wine, oil, etc. to Jerusalem (for instance). That could be a potentially very long way to freight those products and the Lord understood that. He instructs them to sell it… take the money to Jerusalem and use it to buy things worth their 1/10th tithing so they could fulfill the tithing commandment.
Of course we’re not required to tithe in the sense of Old Testament tithing today. Rather we give free will offerings… as we have prospered. So it might be less than 1/10th and it might be greater than 1/10th. Some would say that since we live under a better covenant that it should be more than 10%
The Israelites had a problem giving due to distance. What kind of problems might we have today? I can think of two things off the top of my head.
- We might “love” our money too much and get real sad and have a hard time saying goodbye when the collection plate is passed around.
- We might “love” things that money can buy too much and have bought so many nice things on credit that our money is tied up and we can’t give much to God.
Since we know that we have an obligation to give and that God will hold us accountable what kind remedy might God suggest for our monetary problems?
God might say… don’t live beyond your means. If you can’t afford to pay cash for it don’t buy it.
God might say… why are you buying expensive things for yourself and giving me nothing?
God might say… it’s better to live frugally and give bountifully than to live bountifully and give frugally.
I look back at my life and see that he has blessed me every step of the way. The reality is that if he asked me to give Him everything I have… how could I say no? Surely Heaven is worth “all”
When I was in Veterinary School they taught us that as diagnosticians we lived in a world of probability not possibility and they illustrated it like this…
If you were standing on one side of the barn and heard some hoof beats what would you expect to see? A Tibetan Ox? A Giraffe? A Camel? An Oryx?
Those are all possibilities but are any of them probabilities? No they are not. Don’t be surprised to see a cow or horse come around the corner.
When we consider the testimony of nature we can clearly see that the earth had a beginning and has a complexity to it that cannot be duplicated by the smartest of humanity and cannot be reasonably explained by being an accident.
So as diagnosticians what do we conclude? There are a lot of possibilities but the probability is that the earth and all the life on it were created by an intelligent being. Are the Big Bang theory and specific evolution possibilities? Yes they are but they are not likely or probable.
It’s then that we turn to the Bible record to find that intelligent being that was responsible for it all.
Someone told me one time that if you sat a monkey down in front of a type writer and gave him enough time that eventually he could type out the Declaration of Independence. That’s ridiculous… I know monkeys… they would tear the typewriter up and defecate all over it.
Don’t waste your time and life chasing after every little possibility that exists. Follow after probabilities and keep your eyes open for the rare possibility that might pop up.
Examine nature carefully and carefully investigate the Holy Scriptures it's possible and probable that you will find God.
Many years ago Julie and I used to sit towards the front of the auditorium and then for some reason we decided to change our seats and moved to the very back row. That turned out to be a good move for us. Here’s what I’ve learned.
As an Elder when you are sitting on the back row you can see the whole flock. When you are sitting in the front you can’t. Things that can be seen from the back include things like who is missing, visitors and any activities that might need to be addressed.
Sometimes strangers with requests including homeless come in the after services have started. It’s good to have a person in authority in the back to address those folks.
Sometimes members come up to me with a note about something that needs to be announced when they ordinarily would not feel comfortable walking to the front to give said note.
Sometimes I see members crying during the services or who walk out crying that may have needs that I can address.
I do a little bit of texting during the services. If there is some kind of issue I can text the other Elders and inform them. If there is a security issue where the security person in the back may need a little help I can text the other security people.
If there are several visitors who need to be greeted after services and I know I can’t get to all of them I can text my other hospitality experts to help out. I can even surreptitiously take a digital photo from my cell phone of the visitors and text it to our super greeters.
Once services have started I can assess who is missing and text a message that we have missed them.
When the kids are filing out to go to class I can give them all a “fist bump”.
One of the down sides to sitting on the back row is some of the members like to slap me on the back of the head or tap me on the opposite shoulder to make me look the wrong way. Just joking… that’s not a downside… they’re telling me that they are comfortable with me and that they love me.
I’m not saying that all the Elders need to sit on the back row but at least one does because it’s hard to shepherd the flock when you can’t see the flock.
Julie and I didn’t move to the back row because we did some in depth analysis or because of the wise council of a spiritual sage. We did it by accident and like a lot of things in our lives it just worked out for the good.
There’s a subtle shift in the New Testament in the use of miraculous powers given to humans by God.
For instance, if Jesus needed money he could pull a coin from the mouth of a fish. If he needed to feed a mass of people he could feed thousands with just a few pieces of fish and bread.
And yet in the book of Acts we find that there is a famine in Judea and instead of miraculously manufacturing money and food the Apostles relied on the sacrificial giving of Gentile Christians. Oh they still did miraculous things but it was more on the order of casting out demons, healing the sick, tongues and prophecy.
So why would God begin to limit the miraculous gifts he had given to Spirit filled people? I think the answer is obvious… if God continuously spoon fed his children they would never become the spiritually mature men and women they needed to become.
That spiritual maturity could only come about by sacrificial living best demonstrated by Jesus Christ. God’s people begin to become like God when they sacrificially give of their resources just like he did.
So fast forward to today… what does that mean for us? One thing it means is don’t be continually asking God in prayer for things that we can provide for ourselves. In many areas he has already given us everything we need to become successful in life.
Another area of application would be the use of church resources. Don’t let the church and her resources (building, funds, etc.) be our primary source of fulfilling our social and financial obligations to each other.
Have people into your homes. Support Evangelists and ministries out of your own pocket. Use your money to be kind to others, etc.
Grow up… don’t continually be babies nursing on the breast of the church.
The church grew exponentially in the first century and a big reason was God stepped back and didn’t provide every single thing that his people needed when they could provide those things themselves… and they grew into the mature spiritual stature of Jesus Christ himself.
There’s a lesson in that for us as well.
We’ve been in a drought here in South Texas since before January. We really never had a spring it’s been so dry. Of course you can keep the plants alive with city water but they really don’t thrive. To compound that in early February we had a historic freeze that killed a lot of vegetation that wildlife lives on. So it’s been pretty sad around here.
For the past two days we’ve had rain… four inches of rain at my house. This morning when I got up and went outside the White Wing dove were singing their hearts out and as I checked our plants they were putting on new growth and leafing out.
That city water has been worked over pretty hard by the water department and is laden with chemicals so it can be safe for our consumption. It can keep plant life alive but just barely. The water that falls out of the heavens is really what vegetation needs and thrives on… and it’s what people need too.
I see congregations that are watered with “city water”. The water has been sanitized, chemically treated, bottled up and labeled by human beings. When congregations are fed this kind of water they’re kind of like plants… stunted and not much growth, collectively or individually,
When congregations are fed the “living” water which comes from Heaven people are growing spiritually and the congregation is growing collectively because people would rather live in and are attracted to a garden watered from Heaven.
As leaders let’s do our best to provide what the plants in God’s garden need… the kind of water they can thrive and grow on. And if we look at our “work” and see that it’s stunted and sad let’s take a long look at what we’re doing and make whatever corrections we can.
