BECAUSE THERE IS A HEAVEN

And I saw a new heaven… And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God… “Behold the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them.  (Revelation 21:1a, 2a, 3b)

Revelation chapters 21 and 22 are the most descriptive passage about heaven in the Bible.  It is plain in the verses above and the rest of these two chapters that we will not spend eternity sitting on clouds playing harps, but living in the heavenly new Jerusalem.  Notice how much emphasis is placed upon the fact that God will dwell with His people in this beautiful city.  It will be heavenly because God will be there, and He will outshine all else.  It will be a place of joy, purity, peace, and life, simply because God is all this and so much more.  Heaven is not a place where everything pleases us, but a place where everything pleases God… and consequently pleases us if we are His children.

And because there is a heaven, there must be a hell.  There must be a place for everything that does not belong in heaven.  God is who and what He is.  He cannot and will not change to accommodate mankind’s selfish, hard-hearted, and sinful ways.  He paid a great price in the death of His Son on the cross to provide for our forgiveness.  When we accept that forgiveness, we become children of God by new birth.  Something God-like is born in us, and as it grows and matures, we become more and more like Him.  When we die what remains of our sinful, rebellious old self will fall away, and as children of God we will joyfully take our eternal place with God.  If we fail to accept God’s offer, rejecting His forgiveness and the new life that can be ours in Christ, we will be stuck with who and what we are.  Just consider this for a minute – do you really want to live for eternity stuck with yourself as you are, separated from God and His city of life and light?  Think of the regret, the despair, and the endless replaying of the bitter memories of this life.                                                                          
The longer I live, the more I long to be with God.  We were made to love and be loved by God.  We were made to be with Him.  Why settle for anything less, now and throughout eternity?

RISE AND SHINE

“Awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”  Ephesians 5:14b

When I read this passage I hear is the voice of my father saying, “Rise and shine”.  Like most teenagers all I wanted to do was to sleep in on Saturday mornings, especially this time of year.  My brother and I slept in a large room over our garage that was poorly insulated, and had only one small heating vent.  Snuggled up in flannel sheets under about 5 blankets it took a lot of will-power to get out of bed and get dressed in our frigid bedroom.  Things looked up as soon as I got to the hallway, because I would be met with enticing odors of pancakes, waffles, or Dad’s famous potatoes and eggs.  We needed a good breakfast, because it would inevitably be followed by a day of work outside. 

This time of year, late February, we would be making maple syrup.  On our three acre lot, in the woods behind us, and in our neighbors lot (with their permission) we would tap about 100 maple trees.  We hand drilled holes in the trees about three feet off the ground, tapped in a spout, and hung up a pail.  As the weather got up above freezing, sap would run up the trees in the day time, and then back down as it cooled below freezing at night.  Each time the sap ran, we got some in the buckets.  Maple tree sap has a mildly sweet “green” taste. I enjoyed taking a sip once in a while.  It takes about 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.  We would collect the sap several times during the week if it was running well.  Then on Saturdays we would build a wood fire under the boiler, which was a shallow pan about 3 feet wide and 6 feet long.  You can’t imagine how wonderful it smelled as it boiled!  By Saturday evening it would be down almost to the bottom, so we would pour it off, take it to an old stove in the basement, and finish boiling it down to the proper sugar content.  Dad liked to get a high sugar content, so we invariably had maple sugar candy forming on the bottom of the canning jars after a month or two.

Yes, it was a lot of work, but no, I don’t look back on those Saturdays as child abuse.  It was fun, and those times are some of my fondest childhood memories.  If I had a large yard with maple trees, I would make it today.  But the main reason those times mean so much to me was that they were times working with Dad.  Including my brother and me in his work was one of my Father’s love languages.  He included us in whatever he was doing.  He loved to teach us what he knew.  He wanted to help us grow up into competent, self-assured men.  And Saturdays weren't always work days, we also got to join him hunting and fishing. 

I think one of God’s love languages is including us in what He is doing.  Isn't that what Jesus did with His disciples?  He took them with Him as He taught, healed, and proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom.  He showed them how to fish for men, and He patiently taught them what it means to be godly.  Yes, the work of the Kingdom is often hard work, just like making maple syrup, but the reward is that we get to join God in His work, and learn His ways.  He teaches us how to serve.  He teaches us how to listen and follow the quiet voice of the Spirit.  He gently corrects our bad attitudes, pride, and self-centered ways.  And best of all, we get to be with Him through it all, and see in His eyes the love of a Father who loves to be with His children.  Rise and shine.

DEEP DOWN DARK CHRISTIANITY

Deep, Down, Dark by Hector Tobar is the true story about 33 men who were trapped in a mine in Chile (I highly recommend this book).  The main entrance to the San Jose’ mine and all avenues of escape were blocked by an enormous slab of rock the size of a skyscraper.  Realizing that they very well might not come out alive, the men ask Henriquez, a man they called the Pastor, to pray.  Why did they ask him?  The reason was simple.  In their words “as soon as he opens his mouth and begins to talk it’s clear that he knows how to speak of God and to God.”  Henriquez asks them to get on their knees in a posture of humility before God and he prays.  Soon men are asking God to forgive them for their drunkenness, for cheating on their wives, for their tempers, and for the way they have treated their children.  Praying together becomes a daily ritual, and after their times of prayer they ask forgiveness from each other for their sharp words and unkindness’s.  In mine disasters, as in fox holes, there are no atheists.  Men in times of crisis faced with their mortality realize that they will have to answer to God.

It is hard to read a book like Deep Down Dark and not think about how I would react in a similar situation.  Would I, like Henriquez, be that solid godly man that others would turn to?  Do my co-workers see me as someone who knows how to speak of God and to God?  Would I be able to confidently take them in prayer before God?  Could I bring them hope day after day as their meagre food supply of a few cans of tuna and a handful of cookies dwindled to nothing?  Could I stand firm in faith as death stared me in the face?  God, help me, help us all, to be men and women like Henriquez.

THE IDEAL VERSUS THE REAL

He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial… Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.       Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have experienced some wonderful expressions of Christian community.  A group of us at college found such life and joy together that we gathered every day after classes to pray and study the Bible.  God was so present, so real.  Likewise while I was serving in the Army Barb and I found sweet fellowship among fellow soldiers and their families, but God had even more in store for us.  Just days after moving into base housing, while on our way to buy groceries in a nearby town, we saw the sign, “Jesus People Meet Here”.  We showed up on Sunday and met a group of Jesus People, complete with long hair, a van painted with flowers, and guitars (only organs and pianos were considered proper back then in church).  We just couldn't seem to get enough worship and fellowship on base with our Army friends, or off base with our hippie friends.  Our homes were open, and we gladly shared what we had.  There was not a Saturday that we went to preach in the county jail that someone didn't get saved, even while men at the back of the cell made fun of them.

Those times were a gift from God, and it is right for me to cherish them, but the memory of them has tripped me up in recent years.  I keep looking for that same beautiful feeling of community.  I keep trying to find or create a church experience that will match what we had back then.  Maybe if we were in a small church.  Maybe if we held church in homes.  Maybe if we did away with bulletins and an order of worship, and we just let the Spirit lead us.  Maybe if…  The reality is, though, I never will find what I am looking for, because the ideal that I hold is not real and it never was.  If I am honest with myself I will realize that there were undercurrents and problems back then just as there are now.  There was hidden sin.  There was gossip.  There was competition.  There was all that my (now) more mature/ discerning eyes see in every church and every Christian organization that I am and ever have been a part of.

So, what is wrong with the church?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe church as you and I experience it is truly the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  After all, what is the church?  It is as Dietrich Bonhoeffer states above a spiritual reality.  It is made up of every truly born again man and woman on earth, and local churches are simply communities of these believers.  When we are born again we become as Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5:17 a new creation.  But if we stop here, we will have an incomplete picture of the kind of people who make up churches.  We will expect every member to always act like the Jesus of the Bible – after all, are we not born again into His image?  Yes, but that is not all we are.  Along with being a new creation in Christ Jesus, we are also still men and women in the flesh, with an old nature to deal with.  Paul gets very honest about his old nature in Romans 7:21, where he states that, “evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.”  This reminds me of those cartoons, where someone is pictured with an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other.  Keeping this in mind will help us accept the “real” churches we all attend.  Reality is that none of us lives completely out of our new natures. 

So, as we walk into church on Sunday, or meet with friends from church, what should be our attitude and our expectations?  Firstly I think we all need to approach our relationships in church with humility.  I’m still very prone to live out of my old nature, and that means I will need your forgiveness, your patience, and your understanding.  It also means that you will need to be honest with me from time to time, and tell me when you see something un-Christ like in my behavior.  (Please do it gently and in love.)  You see, I need you, and you need me.  God has given us each a piece of what is needed to make church work and be a healthy place.  Together we have what we all need.  Though at times it might seem like it would be easier to just go it on our own, that will not work. The life of my Lord Jesus is in you, and that life flows to me when I am with you.  Wow, I better respect, honor, and value you! 

Real church is always a mixed bag, and if you are in it long, you will be hurt and knocked around a bit - or maybe a lot.  But cheer up, it won’t be long until Jesus comes and finishes in us what He began.  We will leave behind these bodies of flesh, leave behind what remains of our sin nature, and be fully conformed into His image.  Then “real” church will be really great, my ideal and yet SO much more.