IT’S WHO YOU KNOW

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace.”  (Ephesians 2:4-7 NIV)

When it comes to spiritual knowledge, it's not what you know but Who you know.  I experienced the value of knowledge that is up close and personal during the 1996 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees.  The cleanup pitcher for the Yankees, John Wetteland, is a close friend and gave my son and me tickets to attend a game in Atlanta.  Because we knew John, his name was the key to untold opportunity wherever we went.  It unlocked a hotel room in a city that was overbooked.  It gained us entrance to the Yankee locker room.  It even provided seats on the team bus right next to Reggie Jackson!  My son, Nathan, and I kept pinching ourselves to make sure the whole experience wasn't a dream.  But it was -- a dream come true.

What personally knowing John Wetteland did for us in Atlanta, intimately knowing Christ does for a Christian in this life -- it opens the entrance to eternity; it reserves a seat in Heaven; and it unlocks the treasure house of God's wisdom. 

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in “Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians” 

#6488

ETERNITY IN OUR HEARTS

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."  (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NKJV)

Have you looked at God’s stars and marveled as they lit the velvet-dark sky? Watched a sunset in which the sky is tinted in reds and oranges on the horizon to a deep tone of blue above and delighted in God’s paintbrush? Then you’ve seen Him make things beautiful in their time.

Though we appreciate our changing world, we only understand so much of it. Even the best scientists cannot describe every detail of our world, from its first day to the present. And if they could, they still couldn’t so combine it with beauty that we could appreciate both simultaneously. God is so much greater than we can be. None of us can fully aspire to His greatness.

Though we’re not up to the task of full understanding all He does, this glorious God still wants us near Him. We can’t meet Him on His own terms, yet He wants us so much that He offered us – through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross -- the great blessing of eternity in our hearts. Even the beauty of a magnificent world can’t fill our hearts and souls. God has given us the desire to spend all eternity with Him.  Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3 NKJV)

So while you’re gazing at the beautiful sky, don’t forget to praise the One who created it and you – and be thankful that you were one He decided to share eternity with. 

– Adapted from “Daily Wisdom to Satisfy the Soul,” published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

#6457

WIRED FOR ETERNITY

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts.”  (Colossians 3:1-2)

C. S. Lewis, the brilliant Christian apologist, noticed that everything that satisfies fails to satisfy completely. If we enjoy something, we always want more! Desires for such things as food, drink, and a home can normally be satisfied, but the lasting desires cannot be satisfied on this earth. This led Lewis to conclude that we were made for another world. There is a depth to human experience that will not and cannot reach fulfillment on this earth -- because we were made for heaven. “This world is not my home.” Time will never fulfill our deepest longings, because we were wired for eternity. 

-- Stuart Briscoe in “Daily Study Bible for Men”

#5768

AN ETERNAL MANSION

James A. Michener once said that, "If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life." Christianity teaches that one who believes in Christ can take that one step -- one giant step -- further. If one finds God in Christ, that person has a mansion which can be inhabited all of his/her eternal life.

Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe in Me also. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may also be. And where I go you know, and the way you know… I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:1-4,6 NKJV)

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry

#5566

LOVE - THE GREATEST INVESTMENT

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails… And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a,13 NIV)

We never know how far our life will extend.  Do you believe this remarkable truth?

Heaven will hold breathtaking surprises for many who think what they do is unimportant.  Amid the hallelujahs and hugs many will be honored for simple, yet life-changing acts of redemption.  And the greatest thrill will be when our Lord Jesus looks into seemingly insignificant individuals' eyes and says, "Well done.  I appreciate the redeeming love you've shown to __________ and __________ and __________."

...The greatest investments ever made are investments in people, because people go to heaven. And our experience has been that we cannot begin to grasp the way our loving redemptive actions will affect people for eternity. 

-- Dr. Norm Wakefield & Jody Brolsma in “Men Are from Israel, Women Are from Moab”

#5112

SEARCH FOR PURPOSE

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You.”  (Psalm 139:13-18 NKJV)

Our search for purpose seems coded into the fabric of our being. We are wired to live a meaningful existence, but we can’t begin to discover what that purpose is unless we know the One who created us for a purpose. …

Every search for purpose is meant to lead us to the One who gave us the drive to search. Seeking meaning must take us to the Maker of all things. Understanding our purpose begins with knowing the One who put eternity in people’s hearts. 

-- Rob Fuquay in “Which Way, Lord?”

#4891

SUFFERING TODAY, REJOICING TOMORROW

“Weeping may linger for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning…
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
    You have taken off my sackcloth
    and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise You and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”  (Psalm 30:5b,11,12)

Our sorrows are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for immortal souls. They come, but blessed be God, they also go. Like birds of the air, they fly over our heads. But they cannot make their abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow. 

-- Charles Spurgeon


#4441

THINKING ABOUT ETERNITY

God has a purpose for your life on earth, but it doesn’t end here. His plan involves far more than the few decades you will spend on this planet. It’s more than “the opportunity of a lifetime”; God offers you an opportunity beyond your lifetime. The Bible says, “[God’s] plans endure forever, His purposes last eternally.” (Psalm 33:11 TEV)

The only time most people think about eternity is at funerals, and then it’s often shallow, sentimental thinking, based on [a lack of information.] You may think it’s morbid to think about death, but actually it’s unhealthy to live in denial of death and not consider what is inevitable. “Death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2b NIV) Only a fool would go through life unprepared for what we all know will eventually happen. You need to think more about eternity, not less.

-- Rick Warren in “What on Earth Am I Here for?”


#4352

Heavenly Light

THE LANGUAGE OF PRAYER

When it comes to prayer, despair makes one eloquent… Sometimes our prayers lack eloquence because prayer seems to us, in truth, to be rather incidental, or perhaps a kind of convenience.  After all, if prayer doesn't work we can always invest more of our hopes in those remedies that money can buy, or that logic can contrive.  I hate to say it, but our comparative abundance may get in the way of greater skill in our native tongue, prayer.  Mind you, despair and faith are not the same, but sometimes despair impels our search for faith.

I want so much for you and me to understand the importance of being bilingual.  I want us to realize that a person who can talk only in the dialects of business, sports, sex, literature, philosophy, and the news of the day is fatally disadvantaged.  Because you and I must eventually, some day, do business with God -- in this world, and in the world to come.  How pathetic to think that we might have to stand before God, eloquent in business, sports, and gossip, and babbling like an infant when it comes to the divine tongue!

Here's the good news -- Divine eloquence is within every person's reach, because it involves the language all of us are equipped to speak.  But -- as with any other language -- you have to care enough to spend some time learning the fundamentals of the language and then expanding your vocabulary and your ease of expression.

Now is the time to be at it.  Not when you're facing surgery the next day, or when your family is falling apart, and certainly not when you're dying.  Now is the time, the ideal time, to become eloquent in our native tongue.  Prayer -- the language that works in both time and eternity.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in New Testament Stories from the Back Side

#3771

THE CENTRAL EVENT

The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus -- He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating "God was manifested in the flesh …" from "… He made Him … to be sin for us …" (1 Timothy 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.

-- Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest


#3186

THE LITTLE CHURCH WITHIN THE CHURCH

Puritans called marriage "the little church within the Church," a place to test and also develop spiritual character.  Every day marriage calls both partners to love and forgive and stay faithful -- hard work that only makes sense if we are convinced somehow that we are participating in a kind of alternate history, one set in eternity. I persevere in the difficult times in my marriage for the same reason I persevere in the difficult times in my faith:  because I believe that both touch something of eternal significance.

For most of us, it takes years, perhaps a lifetime, to realize what unity with another person means.  We learn each other's strengths and weaknesses, and work out power-sharing.  We learn when to probe and when to back off, when to soothe and when to challenge.  Gradually, as two independent people share a common reality, a kind of transfiguration takes place.  A "second love" emerges. 

-- Philip Yancy in Rumors of Another World


#3005