Category Archives: Heaven

Come and get me.

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Any of us who’ve lost loved ones to death find our thoughts moving between two different worlds, the here and the hereafter. This back-and-forth thought process includes a pause at a theological stop sign: Christ’s second coming.

According to the calendar of human history, we’re living in that middle ground between Jesus’ first coming and his second, his first as a newborn who grew into our radical Savior, and his second as a victor in battle.

Once in a while I think, “What if Jesus returned to earth tonight?”

He promised that when he did come back, it would be to defeat evil and escort Christians to heaven. He actually said, “I’ll take you home with me.” (John 14:2)

I love that he’s implying we’ll feel right at home when we get to heaven. It’ll be similar to returning home after an arduous journey with a big “Ahhh” of contentment when we walk in the door. So I tell myself, “Wouldn’t it be spectacular if Jesus came today?” But I struggle to answer, “Yes.”

And there’s a good reason: I need more time to do better at living the Christian life.

Most of us get only 7 or 8 decades on the earth, and it took me about half of those to get into gear in my walk with the Lord. Much of my early life was bare-minimum believing as I straddled a spiritual fence between obedience and rebellion. Even now, already in my 60’s, I should be doing much better.

And so, I figure, I need more time to keep trying.

Is Jesus reading this and chuckling? Or is he reading it and saying, “You’ve got the right idea.” Being unsure of the answer is probably an indication of my spiritual immaturity. Of course I’m longing to be with Jesus and to experience walking into his home, finding the place he’s prepared for me there. But as the Bible so aptly puts it,”Night is coming, when no one can work.” (John 4:9) Time to try harder will eventually end.

My hesitation to head to heaven isn’t because I want to earn more glory-points. It’s about feeling badly over personal sin and hoping for time to practice godly living, to be a better daughter to God. Just as I wanted my earthly dad to be pleased with me and felt badly when he wasn’t, I have a strong longing to please my heavenly Father.

There’s just one nagging thought behind my philosophy of wanting more earthly time. What if my condition as a human being is exactly the factor that’s prohibiting greater success at godly living? I don’t mean to say ungodly desires aren’t the root cause, but what if even the most saintly person among us still feels like I do, no matter how many years she has to work on it?

In that case, it would be a really good thing if Jesus just came and got me tonight.

“To the one who does not work but trusts God, who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5)

Cry No More

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Half of me is in heaven, the Nate-half. Many of my thoughts have followed him there, and my questions seem never to end. It’s encouraging to know the answers will one day come, and in the mean time, I’m trying to keep my ears and eyes open. Just this week I learned something significant.

We all love the verse in Revelation that says, God will wipe away our tears. The same passage tells us he will also do away with sorrow, pain and death. But there’s one thing about this thrilling statement no one ever mentions. Scripture says the wiping away of tears will happen at the time of the new heaven/earth, and that won’t be our dwelling place until the end-times battles are over and Satan has been permanently defeated.

In other words, not yet. So Nate isn’t living in that new heaven but is definitely living with Jesus. It’s probably the place Jesus referred to as “paradise” when he was on the cross. I’m not worried about Nate, but I do wonder, has he been crying?

It’s very possible.

If God is going to wipe away tears, there will have to have been crying first. What would Nate be crying about? He no longer has cancer and has been freed from back pain. He’s living with the Lord, experiencing the ultimate in security and joy. So what would reduce him to tears? I may be off base, but the answer might be “himself.”

Technically I can’t speak for Nate, especially now that his life has been so dramatically altered, but I can speak for myself. When the Lord confronts me with my own mistakes, failures and deliberate sins now, before I’ve gone to paradise, I’m devastated and am often brought to tears. How will it be to have Jesus looking at me while I’m feeling like that? I know I’m eternally forgiven for those things, but I’ll be acutely aware of the lack of righteousness within me. Surely that’ll make me cry.

Scripture says Jesus will be the one to present me to God the Father as completely sinless because of his having taken all the punishment that should have been mine. Without him, I was destined for the God’s dreadful wrath. So, in that interim period between earthly death and the new heaven/earth, between arriving into Christ’s presence and being presented to God, I wonder if my tears will freely flow.

How could I look at the numerous scars my sin inflicted on Jesus, scars from whips, thorns, nails and a sword, and not feel like weeping?

The more I get to know Jesus, the more I’m sure those stinging tears will serve a positive purpose, because he promises to bring good from everything, even pain and sorrow.

So if Nate has been crying in paradise, and if some day I will too, I know it’ll all be for a good reason.

“God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain…” (Revelation 21:4)

A Revelation

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The word “revelation” means to discover something new, something striking or arresting. Today I had a revelation.

During these weeks leading up to Easter, my thoughts have been riveted on the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, the single purpose of which was to help those of us who would be doomed without him, which is everyone.

Yesterday I blogged about my worst fear, that of seeing my children suffer without being able to help. Mel Gibson’s movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, depicts Christ’s last torturous hours, including the responses of his closest friends and relatives. His mother’s horror at having to witness the extreme abuse of her son, the one she bore and raised, was an emotion I completely understood, and I wept with her, during the movie.

Today God revealed another facet of those hours of severe torment, a revelation to me of his deepest heart. He, too, experienced the same terrible circumstance I wrote on my 3×5 card during my Bible study. He watched his own Son undergo horrendous torture without being able to help him. The one thing I fear most, he did.

Of course God could have helped Jesus. It was within his power to abort the crucifixion at any point during those awful 12 hours. As Jesus said to Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” (John 19:11) But by withholding that power, by allowing the abuse, the beatings, the torture and the murder of his Son, God facilitated Jesus being able to open heaven to anyone who believes in him.

But how could God have possibly stayed his hand? How could he have watched it happen without stepping in to severely punish the ones hurting his guiltless Son? What possible gain could have outweighed such massive loss?

The fact that our names might appear anywhere in the answers to those questions is absurd. And yet they do. Despite the fact that we are corrupt, selfish, prideful, riddled with filthy sin, he loves us. He wants us. He could destroy us all and begin again with a pure people, unspotted by disobedience and disregard for him.

And yet, he wants… us. And that’s the reason he watched his Son suffer without stepping in, without stopping it when he could have.

The most famous verse in the Bible has a word in it most people gloss over. In John 3:16, Jesus is speaking and describes himself as “the only begotten Son” of God the Father, not just the “only” one but the only “begotten” one. That word “begotten” means “born of a father.”

Jesus was the born Son of God his Father, just as my seven children were born to me. God the Father chose to suffer through watching his Son lay down his life without stopping it, for my sake…and yours.

…an awesome revelation to me today.

“[Jesus said,] ‘For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative’.” (John 10:17,18)