Thinking About Heaven

 "But as it is written; eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." 1Cor. 2:9

Heaven is the place we who are saved all hope to go someday. We trust that those who we knew and who have died are already there.

" We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." 2Cor.5:8

The Holy Spirit clearly says that there is a place to be that is different and that is better than where we live now.

To some people, Heaven will be a familiar place. It will be a stylized version of the best we can think of now. They think that Heaven will be filled with familiar faces and loved ones who we will be reunited with. They think that Heaven will be what we love here without the pain and sickness and decay. To them, Heaven would be like Adam and Eve going back to Eden without the serpent to deceive them.

The Bible gives us a different idea about Heaven. It is too involved for me to go into it all in this space. But let it suffice to say that Heaven will be like living in a dreamland that you have never seen or been before. The apostle Paul, after he had seen it, was forbidden to describe it to us.

"how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." 2Cor.12:4

I think that people will be recognizable just as Jesus was recognized by his disciples after he was risen from the dead. But we will be like the angels; spiritual beings unfettered by natural laws.

God always saves the best for last. Jesus is preparing a place for us with him. The face of God that Moses could not see without dying will be visible in Heaven. The new Jerusalem might be the command and control center from which God in Christ administers the universe. It will be amazing and unlike anything we can even imagine.

Calvinist Preaching Misses The Mark

 Everything I ever learned or knew about preaching I learned from Wayman Mitchell. I learned what Bible doctrine is. I learned how to apply the Bible to modern life. And I learned how to study to find out what the Bible says as you mine it's depths.

Our recent revival reminded me about expository preaching. What is that you may ask? It is the kind of preaching the Evangelical world lives on. It is the format of every radio preacher I have ever heard. It is a method of preaching that many feel is the only way to let God speak through His word. Basically, expository preaching is reading the Bible and trying to explain what happened way back in prehistoric times. It is explaining the Bible by telling the Bible stories and explaining how people thought or how they felt or to explain why they did what they did.

Pastor Mitchell was not an expository preacher. He could explain Bible doctrine better than anyone. He could uncover Bible truths in a way that anyone could understand it. But pastor Mitchell could also apply Bible truth to real life. He could show that the Bible is still alive and powerful by living it himself and by declaring it to others. All of the basic Bible doctrines that I know I learned from pastor Mitchell. Many successful pastors today learned how to pastor from Wayman Mitchell. Pastor Mitchell not only studied the Bible he also read many books and he applied what he learned to himself and his family and his church.

Knowing what old Bible characters were thinking or feeling is at best good for academic exercise but not always useful for overcoming sin or loving your wife. On top of everything else, the Bible is a book that is the story of redemption. It is incomplete in covering history. It leaves vast areas unexplained. It is not a handbook on how to succeed in the Christian life. It shows the wisdom of God in providing a savior to go to the cross and to rise from the dead.

Calvinists get some thing right. But they miss the mark by a wide margin in other areas. We are not Calvinists. We are those who believe that now is the time and today is the day and that a risen savior is still alive and working today. Let those who minister the Word to us both live as an example and preach with clarity and show us how to make it to Heaven in the end.

Ernie Haase & Signature Sound - Then Came The Morning (Live)

David and the Other Giant

 "When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, David and his servants with him went down and fought against the Philistines; and David grew faint. Then Ishbi-Benob, who was one of the sons of the giant,...thought he could kill David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid, and struck the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, you shall go out no more with us to battle,..." 2Samuel 21:15-17

In 1Samuel 17 we read the amazing story of David killing Goliath. How a young man stood up to a veteran warrior, a giant, and killed him with a shepherd's sling and one smooth stone. This was a great victory for Israel. This elevated David in the eyes of both friends and foes. David became a warrior and then a warlord under Saul until David finally became King.

Now years later we find that Goliath was not alone. There were other giants among the Philistines. And so David, no doubt remembering how the Lord gave him victory over Goliath, thought that he could take on and kill the son of the giant. How wrong David was. How weary David became in battle. And how close to death at the hand of this giant he had come. If David's men had not intervened to save their king this old man David might have been killed by this young giant. David's men, because of this episode, told him to leave the hard fighting to the young men and don't endanger your life and the lives of others to satisfy your ego.

How many times in one of our churches have I heard a pastor tell us that doing what you used to do is the key to reviving your aging soul. This is the Sun City Gospel; that being happy and fulfilled comes by acting young and trying to look young. Entropy is the unavoidable law of nature that we are all heading to a point of no return where the spirit may still be willing but the body say no way Jose. Mid-life crisis is when you realize that you have crested the hill and you are on the downward slope of your life.

I have begun to wonder if our Fellowship is so reluctant to address the ageing saint issue because we only know one way to serve the Lord. It's all or nothing. That leaves us who are older feeling left out or unwanted and considered to be a drag on revival. 

If David had not been rescued by his friend we would see his story end right there. In our Fellowship some older saints feel like they are worth more dead than alive. Or they move away seeking a place of acceptance and value. We have no appreciation for the older saints; except for pastor Mitchell, who is dead and gone, and soon will be forgotten.

Paul would not have retired either. So the Lord put him in a Roman jail for years so he could write the epistles that make up the New Testament. Too bad pastor Mitchell could not disengage and write his thoughts for future generations of young disciples.

The Lord Was There

 "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." Matthew 18:20

Sunday morning, as pastor Jesus Celaya was preaching, I felt like someone was looking over my shoulder. I cannot remember if it was literal or spiritual. But out of the corner of my eye I saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing in the aisle observing the service. It happened so quick and then it disappeared. But immediately the verse that I quoted came to my mind. 

I was not afraid or surprised by what I saw. I was encouraged that no matter who is preaching or how we feel the Lord is present and by the Holy Spirit he is active and observant even in our church.

Watch and Pray

 We often talk about the great revival that birthed our Fellowship as though it was just pastor Mitchell doing what he did that produced what we see. We fail to put it all in the context of the world as it was at the time of the Jesus People Revival. We were in the midst of social and political and cultural upheaval. I hesitate to call it revolution as some did back in the day. Student led protests against societal norms. A drug fueled revolt against the established order. Young people across the world were casting off restraints and striving for their utopian dreams. Back to the garden. And they failed. The political revolution never happened. The educational revolution never played out. Hippies finished their degrees and joined the mainstream. They are the baby boomers who are running everything today.

Today we are seeing the grandchildren of the 60s trying once again to forment revolution and upheaval. The rhetoric has changed, but the utopian dream is the same. Young people and student led riots trying to overturn society and history. And already I see the cracks in their front and the beginnings of a groundswell of popular push back against the drug fueled madness of this generation. I once thought that if society today got as bad as it was in the 1960s maybe God would move again. But it is different today and there is no guarantee that what God once did He will do the same thing again.

"Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43: 18-19

I wonder if, as God begins to move again,  we will struggle to find and follow His purpose, as pastor Mitchell did, to follow what the Holy Spirit is doing today? 

Watch and pray!

I Know It When I Hear It

 I don't always know how to make delicious food. But I know when food is good and when food is not good. I don't know how to make good music. But I know when music is good and when music is not good. I don't know how to minister to a group of people. But I can tell when someone is ministering to a group and when they are not ministering.

Pastor Mitchell was a great teacher. He gave solid truth out of the Bible. And his style encouraged audience participation. People would ask questions and give input. Pastor always made time for this. And he did not always have the answer to every question

I have been in Sunday school with other pastors who, when they asked for questions, got silence. Very few times would there be audience participation with questions or input.

In our home Bible study, where inter-action is critical, one of our leaders has the gift of stirring revelation in his audience. He is not a deep thinker. But his spirit brings out insight and revelation in me.

I do not understand how all of this works. But I know good preaching and good ministry when I hear it.

Creation Thoughts

 "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." Hebrews 11:3

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

There is no struggle over the origin of life as we know it. God created a perfect world, supported by heavenly objects, and populated by perfect creatures and ruled over by man. It was God's idea, and God made it all happen. It was created by a spoken word from God. It was created fully formed and perfect.

The only struggle over this is a faith issue. Do you believe that God created it all, or not? Hebrews 11:3 says it's "by faith" that we understand. So, if you do not understand, then you have no faith.

The Bible does not begin with an explanation of God or an argument for His existence. He is, and that says it all.

Those who cling to evolution and the big bang have a God problem, not a science problem.

One more thought. The first thing God created for the planet was light on day 1. This tells me that time as we know it began on day 1of creation. Time is linked to light. Those who reject the Bible reject God, live without light, and get time all wrong. This is fundamental basic wisdom freely given us by God in the Bible.