Mon,
Sep 11, 2017 at 8:10 AM
Hey
Dana
Will the change in the hurricane's
path affect you?
Here is my next idea. We went to the
funeral of a very close friend on Saturday. The first of our group to go Home.
Lot's of tears, mine included. If you have time, I'd like to look at heaven
next week. We could call it "The First 1000 Years."
+++++++++++++++++
Mon,
Sep 11, 2017 at 12:43 PM
John
Missed SS (Sunday School) yesterday,
as we have been harvesting every day in lieu of heavy rains spinning off
Irma hitting today. Nothing destructive expected, except for
grapes. Went in at 8:30 yesterday AM and left at 10:30 PM. Today is
my 11th anniversary at being at this winery. The day I first came
9/11/2006, we brought in our first white grapes. As of today everything
of ours is in house except one variety. And even though the
rain was a factor, yet the grapes were ripe and ready to pick. They maybe
could have hung on a few more days, but it wasn't worth the risk.
Jesus told His disciples that He
wouldn't drink wine again until He drinks it in the kingdom--probably at the
wedding feast. I'm hoping I'm not drafted for work in the winery for
eternity....
Send me your Heaven writings and I'll get
back to you.
Dana
+++++++++++++++++
John
answered on Tue,
Sep 12, 2017 at 7:31 AM
Dear Friend
Dana, a very good friend of ours
went Home to be with the Lord a week or so ago. Her name was Carol “Jeanie”
Broomell Nye. Jeanie was the first of our formerly close group to die. She had
fought cancer for a number of months, and even as the end neared, she was not
willing to accept the doctor’s opinion that nothing could be done. Her personal
faith and belief that God would heal her kept her going, even to the point of
wanting a second opinion...after she got out of the hospital. But she went to
the home of a close friend, and then died shortly thereafter.
I joke with my wife and others (but
actually half seriously) that if I’m in their presence and I keel over with a
heart attack, they are to wait 15 minutes before calling 911 so I die before
the medical help gets there and interrupts my trip to heaven.
Rev 22 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear
as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of
its street..... 3 There will no longer
be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it... 4 they will see His face, and His name will be
on their foreheads. 5 And there will no
longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp
nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they
will reign forever and ever.
There were many testimonies and
remembrances of Jeanie’s constant giving and loving. One woman, for whom Jeanie
was an au pair for many years, told how Jeanie had given her a Bible as a young
girl and she still had and it was her favorite Bible. The pastor told of her
broad involvement in ministry in the church. He said, “She was in every
ministry but the men’s ministry.”
After the service another old friend
reminded me of how Jeanie had even cooked for the men’s ministries’ breakfasts.
I shared with those assembled to
remember and honor her how Jeanie made the decorations for our wedding almost
26 years ago. Our theme was “Yours for the Harvest” (see Luke 10:2 and John
4:34-35).
Rev 21
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her
husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice
from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He
will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be
among them, 4 and He will wipe away
every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there
will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things
have passed away.”
Rev 15 Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and
marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last,
because in them the wrath of God is finished.
2 And I saw something like a sea of
glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his
image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps
of God. 3 And
they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,
saying,
Then, at the end of the service, the piano player, Dir. of Music at
University of Valley Forge, William DeDanto (Billy as I have known him for the
past 25 plus years—can it really be that long?) was softly playing hymns as
background music on the piano. Although I was mingling with people still in the
sanctuary, the sound of the worshipful hymns was gently filled the place. I
must confess I was more tuned into the hymns than to some of the conversations.
I kept trying to picture heaven.
Behold, I am creating new heavens and a new earth; And the former things [of life] will not be remembered or come to mind. Isa 65:17 AMP
15 Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his
temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 ‘Never
again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will
not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to
springs of living water. And God will wipe away every
tear from their eyes.’” Rev 7:15-17 NIV
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making
everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are
trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without
cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will
inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the
murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters
and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This
is the second death.” Rev 21:5-8
NIV
In a Q & A written by the Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association on June 1, 2004, when asked what heaven will be
like, I quote
Mr.
Graham has written: “Heaven will be a place in which its inhabitants will be
freed from the fears and insecurities that plague and haunt us in the present
life. No energy crisis there … Free from the economic and financial pressures
that burden us down here. Free from the fear of personal and physical harm … No
fear of personal failure … Our relationship with Him will be intimate and
direct. I’m looking forward to that glorious day of going to heaven.
“Heaven
will be what we have always longed for. It will be the new social order that
men dream of. All the things that have made earth unlovely and tragic will be
absent in heaven. There will be no night, no death, no disease, no sorrow, no
tears, no ignorance, no disappointment, no war. It will be filled with
happiness, worship, love, and perfection.
Filled with peace and thinking about how Jeanie was now revealing in all
that heaven can offer, I went up to the piano. I gently laid my hand on Billy’s
shoulder and although overcome with tears, began to pray in the Spirit and then
with understanding for him.
Then, still overcome, through my sobs, I told Billy what I wanted to do
for the first 1000 years I’m in heaven. I want to find the room where he’ll be
playing and listen to him play.
That’s what I want to do for the first 1000 years after I get to heaven,
then I’ll probably listen for 1000 more.
Thank God, Dana, that heaven won’t be like it is here.
Your long time friend
John
+++++++++++++++++++
Dana replied on Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 10:23
AM
Hi John,
First, please accept my condolences
concerning the “going home” of your friend.
We know that we do not grieve as the heathen who has no hope in this
life or the next, still we grieve nonetheless.
It is hard to say fare thee well.
Thankfully, for Christians, we do not have to say good bye.
Yet, even in our hope and confidence,
death is hard for us. It is a
conundrum. On one hand we should be
rejoicing—happy even that our loved one or friend has gone home to be with the
Lord. No more pain or sorrow or sin—how
wonderful! We echo Paul in 1 Corinthians
15:54b-55
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory? O
death where is your sting?” (ESV)
Yet there seems to be a sting for we, the
living that remain in the wake of a death.
Perhaps it’s the one who dies for whom that verse is reserved, and who
feels no sting. In Psalm 116:15 the Psalmist, via the Holy Spirit, says of God,
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of his saints.” (ESV)
Is that transition from this life to the
next, or that transition from Earth to Heaven so tremendous—such an incredible
and indescribable blessing, that it delights God to bestow that on His beloved
child? Or other than salvation is there
no better experience a child of God can experience? How opposite from our thinking!
When you consider all the turmoil and
strife associated with life on this planet, is dying and going to Heaven the
workplace equivalent of finally being promoted to senior partner and moving out
of the cubicle to that corner office on the top floor with the unbelievable
view?
Are we too tied to this earth? The words of Hebrews 11 keep coming back to
me as something that should be as dynamic a part of my life as my theology:
10 For he was looking forward to the city that has
foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
And….
13 These all died in faith, not having
received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar,
and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
14 For people who speak thus make it clear
that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If
they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would
have had opportunity to return. 16 But
as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God
is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
We all have fantasies of how we would
like our retirement to play out. In our
wildest imaginations, we see ourselves on a golden beach, in a tropical
climate, eating fresh pineapple and coconut, while watching the blazing sun set
over the water. Or perhaps it’s having
morning coffee on a secluded cabin deck looking at the snowcapped peaks of a
distant, majestic mountain range.
That’s fun to engage in once in a while,
but no matter what our fantasy may be, it simply cannot compare to that real
retirement city of which the writer of Hebrews spoke. We will all spend eternity in the prettiest
of places with the most optimum of conditions.
We are staggered by the beauty of this world as God created it, even
though it has been tarnished by man’s sin, so imagine what the new Heaven and
Earth—the new Eden, will be like in terms of beauty with no corrupting
influence whatsoever!
We really cannot imagine what God has in
store for us. When Jesus wept at the
tomb of Lazarus, was He crying over sadness at the death of his friend? Or, was
Jesus weeping because He knew where His friend really was, and to call him back
to this life would be an incredible step down?
Lazarus was being called to trade in his shiny twenty dollar gold piece
for a tarnished penny. While Mary and
Martha probably thanked Jesus for raising their brother from the dead, I wonder
if Lazarus did?
The real jackpot in death, in my opinion,
is found in Revelation 22: 4a, “They will
see His face….” The one thing man
could not do in this life (without special exception) was to see God’s face and
live. In death we will not only get to
experience all the glories of Heaven, but we will get to see His face…and
live…forever!
That alone should take the sting out of
it.
Your
friend,
Dana
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