Monday, February 2, 2015
429 - Renewed Interest
Spirituality Column #429
February 3, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
If there is a common refrain among non-believers regarding heaven, with its eternal worship, praise, fellowship and participation in the glory of God, it is this:
“It sure must be boring up there.”
Endless loitering in some sort of ethereal “church” among the clouds, I agree, would get old. The presumed forever-after absence of all the fun and mischievous stuff we can do in this worldly life – good, bad, productive, creative, competitive, nonproductive, idle, playful, hurtful, whatever – sounds crushingly unexciting.
Americans, for the most part, can look at heaven this way because we have a pretty good thing going in this country.
Freedom, the kind God ordained through Jesus Christ, is what makes America great. That doesn’t mean all Americans have to be Christians or even have to believe in God or heaven or salvation or any of that stuff. In fact, we do perfectly terrible things against God, whether individually or as a nation, on a daily basis.
Our cultural fabric is evermore rent with the tatters of God-dishonoring personal preferences, political and academic closed-mindedness, the exile of Jesus from social constructs, and the uncritical acceptance of media and entertainment driven distractions. We are a nation vigorously attempting to vanquish Godly worldviews. We aggressively promote the diminishment of critical thinking that defines freedom as a function of God’s divine love; the type of thinking that protects the blessing of our freedom because freedom is indeed a gift from God. We broadly trumpet and underwrite progressively intrusive control on Godly thought, slowly but systematically erasing the fundamental blessings of eternal freedom, peace and joy God has provided.
Still … in our nation we are largely safe, for the moment, to “do anything we want.” Nobody’s going to stop us.
Just be careful what you say about Jesus in public.
On the flip side, much of the world doesn’t have it so good. Secular Europe is learning a hard lesson. Religion in the Middle East, northern Africa and most of Asia, is blood sport. American “let the good times roll” freedom in Christ isn’t something that manifests itself globally. The suffering and persecution that come with following Jesus as described in the Bible (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:12), are commonly experienced. Freedom for them is in heaven.
Heaven, through Christ (John 14:6), is unique from the “heaven” or paradise or hereafter of other religions or of secular legend. It’s a place where everything is good in God’s will, and everything is perpetually new, forever (Revelation 21:1-5).
That’s why Jesus is important now. And that’s why heaven won’t ever get old.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) urges people to understand that religions are very, very different from each other. “They’re all the same” is dangerous ignorance.
February 3, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Renewed Interest
By Bob WaltersIf there is a common refrain among non-believers regarding heaven, with its eternal worship, praise, fellowship and participation in the glory of God, it is this:
“It sure must be boring up there.”
Endless loitering in some sort of ethereal “church” among the clouds, I agree, would get old. The presumed forever-after absence of all the fun and mischievous stuff we can do in this worldly life – good, bad, productive, creative, competitive, nonproductive, idle, playful, hurtful, whatever – sounds crushingly unexciting.
Americans, for the most part, can look at heaven this way because we have a pretty good thing going in this country.
Freedom, the kind God ordained through Jesus Christ, is what makes America great. That doesn’t mean all Americans have to be Christians or even have to believe in God or heaven or salvation or any of that stuff. In fact, we do perfectly terrible things against God, whether individually or as a nation, on a daily basis.
Our cultural fabric is evermore rent with the tatters of God-dishonoring personal preferences, political and academic closed-mindedness, the exile of Jesus from social constructs, and the uncritical acceptance of media and entertainment driven distractions. We are a nation vigorously attempting to vanquish Godly worldviews. We aggressively promote the diminishment of critical thinking that defines freedom as a function of God’s divine love; the type of thinking that protects the blessing of our freedom because freedom is indeed a gift from God. We broadly trumpet and underwrite progressively intrusive control on Godly thought, slowly but systematically erasing the fundamental blessings of eternal freedom, peace and joy God has provided.
Still … in our nation we are largely safe, for the moment, to “do anything we want.” Nobody’s going to stop us.
Just be careful what you say about Jesus in public.
On the flip side, much of the world doesn’t have it so good. Secular Europe is learning a hard lesson. Religion in the Middle East, northern Africa and most of Asia, is blood sport. American “let the good times roll” freedom in Christ isn’t something that manifests itself globally. The suffering and persecution that come with following Jesus as described in the Bible (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:12), are commonly experienced. Freedom for them is in heaven.
Heaven, through Christ (John 14:6), is unique from the “heaven” or paradise or hereafter of other religions or of secular legend. It’s a place where everything is good in God’s will, and everything is perpetually new, forever (Revelation 21:1-5).
That’s why Jesus is important now. And that’s why heaven won’t ever get old.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) urges people to understand that religions are very, very different from each other. “They’re all the same” is dangerous ignorance.
0 comments:
Post a Comment