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Posts Tagged ‘Heaven’

JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTION VICTIM

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2016| 29 Comments »

DawkinsForegivness 2.16I’ll bet there are folks out there who see this meme (helpfully supplied by an internet atheist community) and think “ya, why not just our forgive sins?” Maybe you’re one of those people.

First of all, I can confidently write that God is NOT trying to impress anyone. When you’re the creator of time, space and the universe, trying to impress anyone (even Himself) is just silly.

Second, this quote (by one of the world’s best-known atheists) displays a blatant ignorance — or outright rejection — of who God is.

Is God merciful? Yes. Does God want to forgive us for all the wrong things we’ve done and right things we’ve failed to do? Absolutely.

But God is also something else: perfect. And that’s His baseline standard for everything, whether we like it or not.

So why doesn’t He just forgive us? Well, why do we have courts? Why can’t we just ignore the dude who killed that guy in a bar fight? Why don’t we just overlook how she faked having cancer in order to bilk people out of thousands of dollars?

If these examples offend your sense of justice, then imagine how our creator feels about  our greed, our self-centredness, our violence, our willful ignorance and our cultural belief that we “deserve” the good life.

Is God judge and jury? You bet He is. Execution victim? Yes, that too.

If that last point seems strange, then understand that this is how it goes with those who follow Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is the Son of God): Knowing that we could never do enough or be enough to earn our way into Heaven, God paved the way for us. That way is through believing in and following Jesus.

One of Jesus’s followers describes Him this way: “He never sinned, and he never told a lie”. This is important and you’ll soon read why.

Jesus spent three years traveling around the Middle East with a band of followers, telling people the Kingdom of God (represented by Him) was near. He proved it by healing diseases, raising people from the dead and preaching revolutionary ideas like loving your enemies, refusing to retaliate when a wrong has been done to you and praying for those who hate you.

Then Jesus allowed conniving religious authorities to arrest him on trumped-up charges and convince political leaders to hand Him the ultimate punishment: death on a cross.

What they didn’t realize is that this death would pave the way to Heaven for anyone who believes in and follows Jesus. He paid the price that we should be paying.

Now, when God sees any Jesus follower, He doesn’t see the wrong things we’ve done and the right things we’ve failed to do. He only sees perfection. It’s like Jesus transferred His perfection onto anyone who believes in Him and follows Him.

There. I’ve done my best to explain why God doesn’t just forgive our sins. As you can see, He goes even further than that — sacrificing His Son for everyone who believes in Jesus.

Does this make sense? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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GOD’S JUDGEMENT, MY SADNESS

Posted in It's Not About 'Religion', Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Judgement:anger 1.16So, are there “religious” people out there who cast their anger and judgement on those who don’t believe in their “religion”? Absolutely.

The easiest example I can think of are radical Islamic terrorists. These religious people appear to be overflowing with judgement and anger.

But what about people of faith, like me, who deeply dislike “religion” (read here to find out why: http://wp.me/p2wzRb-i9), but want you to fully understand what we believe and why?

I follow Jesus of Nazareth, who many people believe is the Son of God. We believe Jesus is God’s divine and perfect Son, and an extraordinary gift to every human being. The only thing needed is to accept that gift.

In examining myself, I can’t find any judgement or anger at people who reject that gift. And that includes every member of my biological family.

Instead, what I experience is immense sadness. Why? Because every person who ever was, is and will be is hugely imperfect. We’ve missed the mark on being the kind of people God designed us to be. Indeed, we miss that mark daily and  in ways we can’t even see.

God doesn’t miss the mark. Never has, never will. And that’s the standard He sets for us. And before you angrily declare that’s an impossible standard to meet, let me wholeheartedly agree with you. Absolutely impossible.

Still, when this life is over, we’ll be called to stand before our maker and try to explain away all the wrong things we’ve done and the right things we’ve failed to do. And we will fail. Spectacularly.

That’s where Jesus comes in. The most important part of following Jesus is knowing and believing that Jesus took on all the “sins” of those who follow him and paid the price for those sins by dying on a Roman cross.

Jesus, who never did a single wrong thing, accepted the judgement and the penalty that every person who believes in Him (like me) deserved. In doing so, those of us who follow Jesus have nothing to account for. In God’s eyes we’re snow-white perfect.

See? The judgment doesn’t come from me or any other Jesus follower. It comes from the God of the universe.

So why do I experience immense sadness? Because most people (including my brothers and their families, plus our parents) walk away from that gift. They’ve swallowed our culture’s propaganda, that we’re all pretty much OK and if there’s a God, He’ll let us into Heaven just ‘cause, you know, we’re all pretty much OK.

Everyone who believes what our culture says WON’T be snow-white perfect when they stand before their maker. And instead of spending eternity in Heaven, they will be judged as not worthy. And they’ll spend forever separated from God.

There’s nothing oppressive in this. Our creator is a just God, not a Homer Simpson lawn decoration. And yet one of the men Jesus personally trained to follow Him notes “God is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End [of the world] because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.”

The best way to change is to follow Jesus and the best time is NOW. Interested? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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BUYING YOUR WAY INTO HEAVEN

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2015| 12 Comments »

BuyingIntoHeaven 7.15No doubt about it; Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist and uber-billionaire Bill Gates has done a lot of amazing things in his years on this planet.

Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he’s given away $28 billion (almost half of his total wealth) since 2007.  That money has gone to improving education, providing medical aid for millions of children, upgrading water/sanitation in the developing world and much more.

Along the way, Gates has persuaded other billionaires, such as Warren Buffett, to similarly dedicate massive amounts of their personal wealth to charity.

In short, this guy ROCKS.

So what about the meme (found in an internet atheism community) that inspired me to write this essay?

I did some research; after reading several interviews, it seems Gates can best be described as agnostic. That means he declares that he simply doesn’t know if there’s a God.

So, is Bill Gates going to hell, as this graphic suggests? The simple answer for me is: I don’t know.

As a follower of Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is God’s Son), I DO know that giving $28 billion or $280 billion to charity is not the ticket to Heaven. No one can buy eternal life with God. It’s not for sale.

Indeed, one of Jesus’s earliest followers noted “Your salvation doesn’t come from anything you do. It is God’s gift. It is not based on anything you have done. No one can brag about earning it.”

On the other hand, having faith in Jesus and doing nothing about it isn’t going to go over well, either.

One of Jesus’s brothers explained it this way: “Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?”

I don’t know where that leaves someone like Bill Gates. After all, despite his “God-acts” he is not (and never will be) anywhere close to perfect.

For example, under his leadership the United States government took Microsoft to court over anti-competitive business practices. Despite Gates’ testimony, the company lost. In addition, while Gates was chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft lost another major anti-competition court case, this time to the European Union.

But never mind Bill. What about YOU? You can’t buy your way into Heaven, so how does your behaviour stack up? Examine it with cold, hard realism. Can you defend and account for every wrong thing you’ve done and every right thing you’ve failed to do?

If you’re like me, you can’t. But by believing in Jesus and following Him, you don’t have to. He’s the gift that gives you eternal life. How about giving Him serious consideration?

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YOUR PIVOTAL MOMENT

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2015| 8 Comments »

Jennifer Fulwiler atheism ChristianityFor life-long atheist Jennifer Fulwiler, the pivotal moment came when she held her first child for the first time.

“I looked down and thought ‘what is this baby’?” she recalled in a YouTube video. “From a pure atheist, materialist perspective, he is a collection of randomly evolved chemical reactions.

“I realized if that’s true, then all the love I feel for him is nothing more than chemical reactions in my brain. I looked down at him and I realized, ‘that’s not true’. It’s not the truth.”

Jennifer went on to research the world’s major faiths, but considered Christianity not worth the bother. Then her husband suggested she investigate Christianity because one of its most significant claims — that Jesus of Nazareth is God in the flesh — would be easy to disprove if it wasn’t true.

So she did. Jennifer discovered a world of deeply intellectual thinkers (like Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo) who were also serious Jesus followers.

Men like them made such a compelling, reason-based case for the life, death and resurrection of Christ that, in Jennifer’s words, “I started to think something world-changing happened in first-century Palestine.”

Jennifer realized that atheists “don’t have the lock on reason that I thought. Christians had all the knowledge of science, but they have the total picture of the human experience — love and triumph and hope. Christians could articulate that in a way that atheists couldn’t.”

The result of all this is Jennifer went from denying there is a creator, to becoming a serious follower of the man who many people believe is the Son of God.

Why do all this? Let me make it clear that following Jesus can be hard, especially when most of the world (sometimes including your family and friends) doesn’t follow Him and you can be mocked or even disowned for your beliefs.

As far as I’m concerned, the upside more than compensates. When I decided to follow Jesus, little things immediately changed (I stopped cursing and swearing) and bigger things followed (my wife and I have a firm commitment to donate regularly to charities and to our church).

In other words, like me, you’ll get a new perspective on life. The holy grails of our culture — gaining power and prestige, buying a bigger house, going on expensive cruises, having the latest iPhone — will start to look shallow and pointless.

You’ll start living for the approval of your creator, who the Bible says “loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in his Son would not be lost, but have eternal life.”

And as you start living for God and start attending a church regularly, you’ll be surrounded by others who are also in the midst of being transformed by following Jesus.

Finally, when this life is over, you’ll have real and solid hope that you won’t become nothing more than rancid worm food. You’ll become a citizen of Heaven.

Interested? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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GOING BEYOND SCIENTIFIC PROOF

Posted in Me & The World, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 14, 2014| 12 Comments »

13+-+1-5I love this challenging quote. At the same time, I’m mystified as to why atheists consider it so credible, given that it was spoken by a man (definitely a brilliant man) who died in 1931. It’s hardly a stretch to write that there’s been a whole lot of research done since then.

Without getting into boring details of studies and terminologies (anyone who needs that stuff can certainly find it online), I’ll toss out a few interesting tidbits.

On life after death: In 1991, Pam Reynolds had a near-death experience while undergoing surgery for a brain aneurysm.

Reynolds was kept literally brain-dead by the surgical team for 45 minutes. Despite being clinically dead, when Reynolds was resuscitated, she described some amazing things — like interacting with deceased relatives.

According to Time magazine, as many as 18 percent of people brought back from death after a heart attack said they’d had a near-death experience.

On the existence of Heaven: In 2008, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander III suffered an E coli meningitis infection which attacked his brain and plunged him deep into a week-long coma. Brain scans showed that his entire cortex was not functioning.

Against all odds, Mr. Alexander woke up a week later. And he claimed to have experienced something extraordinary: a journey to Heaven.

In his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, he asserts that there is an eternity of perfect splendor awaiting us beyond the grave, complete with angels, clouds, and departed relatives.

On a personal God: The Internet is overflowing with blogs and articles from people who have experienced God in an intimate, personal way. So I’ll contribute two quotes:

  • “God even knows how many hairs you have on your head” (from one of the original source documents on the life of Jesus of Nazareth – even my wife, who knows me better than anyone, can’t make that claim).
  • “Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I knew you” (passed along by an ancient prophet).

Granted, none of this is the scientific proof that many people demand. But let’s be honest: the creator and master of time, space and universe, who’s responsible for the air you are breathing right now, will ALWAYS be beyond proving or disproving.

God will ALWAYS be past our ability to fully comprehend. Looking for a metaphor? It would be like asking a porcupine to understand the theory of relativity.

So let’s look beyond this to what we CAN understand:

1. God created YOU.

2. God wants to have a personal, eternal relationship with YOU, but there’s a barrier in the way: the wrong things you’ve done (including living your life as if He doesn’t exist) and the right things you haven’t done.

3. You can never do enough to make up for the wrong things you’ve done and the right things you haven’t done.

4. You don’t have to. Jesus, who many people believe is God’s son, did the heavy lifting for you when he died to make up for the moral crimes of everyone who accepts Him and believes in Him.

5. All you need to do is accept the gift of Jesus; make Him your lord and saviour, so you can see your life transformed NOW and have eternal life with Him.

Does this make sense? Yes or no, post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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A TASTY CARROT OR A NASTY STICK?

Posted in In The News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 16, 2013| 2 Comments »

HeavenAndHell2Now this is a curiosity.

I wrote a Frank’s Cottage essay about a survey indicating the promise of Heaven is far more motivating than the fear of Hell in encouraging church attendance and prayer.

Kinda makes sense, right? The tasty carrot is better than the nasty stick, goes the thinking.

Then I heard from an old friend, Tim Callaway, who’s doing university research and stumbled upon statistics that indicate a very different story.

These stats are by no means a definitive indicator, but they are consistent. In the 1930s and ’40s, surveys of 100 to 200 students somewhere in North America (sorry, this ancient stuff has no further details) consistently indicated fear of Hell was far more motivating to become a follower of Jesus of Nazareth than the love of God. In many of those years, the numbers were so lopsided that the love motivation was less than 10 per cent.

Huh? The huge difference between then and now is so puzzling that I bounced this disparity off a pastor buddy, Ross Carkner, to get his feedback.

“I wonder if the change has more to do with the nature of society at large,” Ross emailed me. “I think in the 1930s and ’40s, there was a different mindset.  The world had just come through one war and was posturing or in the middle of another.  The planet was covered in gloom.”

Between the wars and the ruined dreams of the 1930s Great Depression, Ross wondered, “If there was a sense that all you could do was make the most of what you had. This was the builder generation. Work hard and you might get by. This is very different than the baby boomers … the builders were set on making the most of what they had, the boomers were about getting more.”

This makes sense to me. As Ross put it, “I think against that kind of a backdrop, perhaps the builders were open to hearing that ‘things could get worse’ [i.e. the nasty stick of Hell], while the boomers wanted to hear about how ‘things could get better’ [the tasty carrot of Heaven]”.

If this assessment is accurate, then it comes with a subtle suggestion: many people’s ideas about God depend on the world around them. That’s not surprising, but then I remember something an ancient follower of Jesus wrote: “Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.”

I also think of a story about Jesus defending a woman who was brought up on charges of adultery. He told her accusers, who wanted to stone her to death (fooling around on your spouse was serious business in the ancient world), that anyone who’d never done anything wrong could go ahead and throw a stone.

Eventually, all of the woman’s accusers walked away. That left Jesus to do nothing more than tell the woman to go home and don’t commit adultery again.

For me, this event is a powerful example of who God is. And when I realize that he doesn’t change, I see that the ultimate picture of God is incredibly positive. And that’s a picture I want to keep, no matter what happens to me or to the world.

So if you believe in God, what’s your ultimate picture of him? And does it motivate you to do something about your spiritual life?

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THE CARROT OF HEAVEN, THE STICK OF HELL

Posted in In The News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 2, 2013| 5 Comments »

HeavenAndHellReady to take the world’s briefest psychology test? Okay, here goes: which would persuade you to become a person of faith – the promise of Heaven or the threat of Hell?

According to the results of a 32-country study by researchers at universities in Spain and Israel, it’s no contest.

“When heaven and hell are considered valid final destinations, researchers find the notion of eternal bliss is three times more powerful than that of eternal damnation in shaping church attendance and frequency of prayer.” This is from a story in the Windsor Star, a Canadian newspaper.

Is this surprising? When I read the article, I was taken back to the beginnings of my own faith journey. I’ve always believed in a creator, but I decided to follow Jesus in 1990, mostly because I started listening to spiritual rock and pop music and, through that, discovered a positive, loving, closer-than-close God.

Since then, the trip has had rocky moments, primarily because I had faith issues which I didn’t think I could bring to anyone without them wondering about my “salvation”.

In other words, I thought someone was going to tell me if I kept asking hard questions, I could end up in Hell. So I went from embracing the ‘carrot’ (the attraction of a loving God) to running from the ‘stick’ (the threat of God’s damnation).

The story didn’t end there, of course. (If it did, I wouldn’t be writing this essay.) After a long time and many discussions with intelligent, compassionate, non-judgmental followers of Jesus of Nazareth – there are more of them around than you might think – I came back to Jesus.

If I had returned to the faith because those discussions centered around the ‘stick’ – avoiding Hell – I would likely be the poster boy for judgmental, unpleasant religion. I’d be following Jesus only to appease an angry God who doesn’t love me – or anyone else, for that matter – and doesn’t have my best interests at heart.

But he does. One of Jesus’ earliest followers wrote “God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death [to pay for all the bad things we did and still do] while we were of no use whatever to him.”

It’s this love, plus the promise of a life-long, day-by-day relationship with Jesus, and a future in Heaven, that brought me to this place of faith.

I’m not about to deny the truth and suggest there isn’t a Hell and that it doesn’t influence people’s faith journeys. But more importantly, there is a God who wants every single person on this planet – including YOU – with Him in Heaven.

Does that suggest it might be time to rethink your priorities?

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