Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 38
June 2, 2023
Our Longing to Go Home Will Be Ultimately Fulfilled on the New Earth
May 31, the day before yesterday, was Nanci’s and my 48th anniversary. I thank God for His faithfulness and the time we had together. In the years before Nanci died, we experienced what it was to love and trust each other more than we ever had. It is my wholehearted belief that Nanci’s death was not the end of our relationship, only a temporary interruption. The great reunion awaits us, and I anticipate it and delight in imagining it with everything in me.
I read a letter from Tim Keller’s son shortly before his dad died. He quoted his dad saying, “I’m thankful for the time God has given me, but I’m ready to see Jesus. Send me home.”
This reminded me of Nanci’s last days on this earth under the curse. Her final journal entry on February 28, 2022 was, “I told the doctor today that I don’t want to fight the cancer in order to just give me more time. I am going off chemo. I am so relieved and honestly excited! I will see Jesus pretty soon!!!” Exactly one month later, she did.
Ten days before she died, Nanci said, “Randy, thank you for my life!” Through the tears, I said, “Nanci, thank you for my life!” A few days later, weary of the struggle, she squeezed my hand and said, “Randy, please take me Home.” I said, “If I could, I would take you Home right now. And I would never come back to this world the way it is.”
God promises we will in fact come back to this world, but NOT to the way it is now. He will bring us down to a New Earth, a resurrected planet with no more sin, no more death, no more suffering, no more weeping (Revelation 21:1-4; 22:3). It will have all the good things about our present earthly home, multiplied many times, but none of the bad.
Isak Dinesen wrote, “God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.”
And Donald Bloesch wrote, “Our greatest affliction is not anxiety, or even guilt, but rather homesickness—a nostalgia or ineradicable yearning to be at home with God.”
On the New Earth, we’ll at last be at home with the God we love and who loves us wholeheartedly.
“In your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forever more” (Psalm 16:11).
Find more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including Heaven.
Photo by Valentina Locatelli on Unsplash
May 31, 2023
The Heavens Can Never Stop Declaring God’s Glory
Note from Randy: Astronomy has been an interest for me since my childhood. Years before I came to know Christ, I was outside every clear night looking through a telescope. I was fascinated by what I read about the violent collisions of galaxies, explosions of stars, and implosions into neutron stars and black holes. My love for the wonders of the universe helped prepare me to hear the gospel and respond to Christ.
Decades ago, I connected with Kevin Hartnett, who worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for 40 years, retiring as a Science Operations Manager for the Hubble Space Telescope. Kevin is not only an accomplished scientist, but an amateur astronomer and astro-photographer. He is also an outstanding poet, overflowing with excitement about all things astronomy. Above all, he is a God-worshiper.
Kevin produced a beautiful and inspiring book called The Heavens: Intimate Moments with Your Majestic God, which is filled with a sense of awe and wonder that deeply honors God. Though the book is now out of print, you can download it for Kindle and also check out some of the book photos on Google Books.
Kevin told me in a recent email, “The heavens can never stop declaring His genius, power, and unsearchable excellencies.” I hope you enjoy this great article.
The Cosmos Keeps Preaching: My Faith After Forty Years at NASA
By Kevin Hartnett
Have you ever landed great seats at a concert, show, or sporting event — seats right down front, near the center of the action? That’s very much how I think about my position as an employee at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center over the past forty years (now retired), a career spent assisting in the development and testing of satellite control centers and directing the operation of various scientific missions.
As one who had joyfully studied physics and astronomy in college, I landed an enviable front-row seat to watch (and participate in) the technological advances in aerospace engineering and the growth of the scientific disciplines I so love. In fact, my last 25 years were spent helping to manage science operations on the celebrated Hubble Space Telescope program.
Astronomical Growth Spurt
During my tenure at Goddard, satellite-borne telescopes successfully peered above the filtering and blurring effects of earth’s atmosphere for the first time. Book publishers have frankly been busy ever since, rewriting and revising astronomy textbooks for all grade levels, as fresh discoveries now occur virtually every semester.
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ESA/Hubble
The Hubble mission alone has contributed immensely to our understanding of the cosmos. Who knew, for instance, that the universe was not only expanding, but accelerating? Who foresaw the immense morphological variety and complexity of planetary nebulae (see embedded photos) — faint, disk-like objects named by William Herschel upon finding them in his telescope more than two hundred years ago? Who could fathom that true planets around other stars are so commonplace that many can be detected through the periodic dimming of their stars when these “transiting exoplanets” pass in front of them? Who also knew that supermassive black holes occupy the centers of nearly every sizeable galaxy?
All these insights and many more were brought to textbooks through solid observational evidence collected by Hubble. Follow-on investigations and even more discoveries are now being made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Written Across the Sky
To those who have ears to hear, these wonders all marvelously confirm the truth given us in Psalm 19:1–2:
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
Indeed, many glorious attributes of God are now loudly and profoundly declared to us nightly from diverse space telescopes and ground observatories all around the world. Among the qualities demonstrably proclaimed are his intellectual genius, his endless creativity, his eternal power, his exquisite, beautiful, and purposeful craftsmanship, and his divine nature (see Romans 1:20).
Equally marvelous, it is undeniably the case that the deeper you look and the more you listen, his genius, creativity, power, and beauty only become clearer. Why is the universe expanding? We don’t know — but he does! Scientists attribute it to something they call “dark” energy — dark because it’s unknown.
Planetary nebulae are now understood to be stars in the death throes of existence — literally throwing off portions of their outer layers in response to collapsing and rebounding material at their cores. How do the size, mass, and spin of these dying stars dictate the location and shape of the layers expelled? We don’t know!
Why do exoplanet systems look so different from our solar system? We don’t know! Many have Jupiter-sized planets very close to their stars or Neptune-sized icy bodies farther away. Why don’t all sizeable galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers? We don’t know! Our large and beautiful celestial neighbor, the Triangulum Galaxy, Messier 33, apparently does not.
Unimaginably Complex
Ah, but these are the simple questions. How our space-time, matter-energy universe actually works at its most basic level gets as infinitely deep and amazing as a graph of the Mandelbrot set. Why, even the lowly proton itself — the building block of every atom — has now been described as “the most complicated thing that you could possibly imagine. . . . In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.” The proton is apparently a quantum-mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities — a sea of transient gluons, quarks, and antiquarks — in some sense indeterminate until an interaction with it, or observing it, causes it to take a concrete form.
In addition to dark energy, there is evidence for the existence of an unknown type of matter that is gravitationally controlling the members of the (proton-based!) periodic table of elements that we at least recognize, if not understand. Like dark energy, it is simply called dark matter since we don’t know what it is either. Between the two — dark energy and dark matter — the standard model of the cosmos accepted by most astronomers today admittedly can’t account for about 95 percent of what it postulates is “out there.”
And just how quantum fields and particles interact at the most minute scale (if one can even define such) does have cosmic implications, like whether the universe will expand forever or ultimately collapse upon itself. This is why cosmologists and astrophysicists study phenomena like colliding neutron stars and black holes. Their velocities and energies reveal truths about the nature of matter and antimatter that are extremely difficult to discern — even using our most powerful particle colliders. Thus, no matter what corner of the universe you examine, the nature and operation of the processes involved are inevitably more exquisite and complex than first realized.
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ESA/Hubble
Heavenly Calling Card
God actually appears to delight in this heavenly complexity. We find a number of places in his word where he uses the heavens to set forth the extent of his knowledge, power, and might.
Psalm 96:5: “All the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.”
Psalm 147:4–5: “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.”
Isaiah 40:25–26: “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.”
Isaiah 55:9: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
You might say that, in some sense, our Lord uses the heavens as his calling card.
YHWH
If so accepted, what might the name on his calling card be? Well, he revealed one to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14) — the great Jewish tetragrammaton, the four letters YHWH, variously translated as “I am what I am,” “I am that I am,” or most simply, “I am.” He is the ultimate reality, the one underlying all existence. Because he purposed to do so, he commanded the cosmos into existence from nothing (Psalm 33:6–9; 148:3–5; Hebrews 11:3).
What makes more sense than an infinite being designing a universe that’s both infinitely revealing and confounding? Indeed, the more intently you look at the universe, the more it looks unsearchably complex, mysterious, and exquisite (Psalm 145:3).
NUMBER 1/137
Even secular scientists wax theological when they discover aspects of the underlying mathematics of the universe that defy explanation. The great physicists Richard Feynman, Paul Dirac, and Wolfgang Pauli all felt this way about the strange, dimensionless number 1/137 that nearly perfectly defines something called the “fine-structure” or “electron-photon coupling constant.” Feynman wrote,
It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered . . . and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from. . . . Nobody knows. . . . You might say the “hand of God” wrote that number, and “we don’t know how He pushed his pencil.”
PRECISION TUNING
Indeed, for as much as we don’t know about how the universe actually works, astronomers now acknowledge (some reluctantly) that the fundamental values of things like the ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity and the value of Einstein’s “cosmological constant” (which represents the energy density of space) could not be even minutely different from their measured values or the universe as we know it would not be able to function. The former value must be exact by one part in 1040, and the latter by at least one part in 1090 (Stephen C. Meyer, Return of the God Hypothesis, 142, 152).
For context, the estimated number of subatomic particles in the whole universe is on the order of 1080. Imagine trying to be so exact that you could confidently count all the subatomic particles in the universe plus or minus one — and then somehow be ten billion times more accurate still! This is the level of precision in the physics that underpins reality.
ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE
Commenting on these constants and many similar ones that appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned to produce an orderly universe, the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking noted, “The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life” (Return of the God Hypothesis, 141).
Indeed, during the last several decades, there has been a demonstrable shift from the belief that life-bearing planets like ours must be commonplace in the cosmos, to the scientific realization that we’re more likely rare, or possibly even unique. This is not only because our atoms are fine-tuned to hold together properly, but because the unlikely circumstances of humanity’s placement in a spiral galaxy, around a relatively quiet star of the right color, at the right distance from it, held stable by a large moon, on a planet with sufficient mass to hold an atmosphere and water, having the right atmosphere, having a protective magnetic field, and so on, all multiply together as improbabilities to yield something nearly impossible.
Contemplating such facts, British physicist and author, Paul Davies, wrote: “The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge. You see, even if you dismiss mankind as just a mere hiccup in the great scheme of things, the fact remains that the entire universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life — almost contrived — you might say a ‘put-up job’” (Source).
This postulate actually has a scientific name, the Anthropic Principle, which basically states that the universe exists in a way that it allows observers to come into existence. While nuanced and still debated, one version of the principle, espoused by the man who coined the term “black hole” (John Wheeler), suggests on the basis of quantum mechanics that the universe — as a condition of its existence — must be observed. Coupled with the new understanding that each proton in the universe somehow requires the interaction with another particle or an observer to dictate its ultimate properties, this makes the whole theory both more believable and more unfathomable. To me, these qualities beautifully describe the Lord himself.
Honestly, my faith is also strengthened knowing that God, who built such scientific conundrums into creation and gave us the Scriptures, kindly described his activity thousands of years ago in these understandable words (Isaiah 45:18):
Thus says the Lord,
who created the heavens
(he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
(he established it;
he did not create it empty,
he formed it to be inhabited!):
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
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ESA/Hubble
‘What Is Man?’
Many people tell me that when they learn about the immense objects in the heavens or the almost unimaginable distances to the stars, they feel incredibly insignificant. One can hear the same sentiment from King David in Psalm 8:3–4:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Compared with the size of the universe — even one star in it — it’s true: we’re of very little account. But stars and galaxies aren’t the most impressive item of God’s creative work. Genesis tells us clearly that the creation of Adam and Eve was the pinnacle of God’s activity in the creation week. After everything else was formed, the triune God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Genesis 1:27 goes on to say, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
As stunning as they are, galaxies were not made in the image of God. It is men and women, boys and girls, who are rational and moral beings made like God himself. If he counts the trillion upon trillions of lifeless stars and has names for them all, do you think the eight billion or so human beings alive today, who exist in his very image, escape his moment-by-moment attention? In Matthew 10:29–30, Jesus says that our Father knows the whereabouts of every sparrow, and that even the hairs on our head are numbered (maybe he has names for them too?!). We should judge our significance to him in the light of these truths.
Hark! The Herald Heavens Speak
Psalm 19:1–2 tells us simply but so profoundly, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” The complexity, size, power, and grandeur of the universe are God’s intentional gifts to us. They are meant to help us understand what he is like — to lovingly help us apprehend our Maker as the unsearchable ultimate reality that he is.
Indeed, the heavens are declaring at this very moment that our God is magnificent beyond comprehension. Listen to them. Hear how their countless hosts strive day after day and night after night to declare the least part, the smallest measure, of his great glory. It is never enough; it never will be; it never can be. He is infinite. Have you heard their voices? Have you joined their chorus?
Dazzling phosphors in the night,
Silent orators, so bright,
How I marvel at your story
And the Hand behind your glory.
This article originally appeared on Desiring God, and is used with permission of the author.
May 29, 2023
107-Year-Old Generous Giver Stanley Tam Goes to Be with Jesus
I found out recently that Stanley Tam went home to be with Jesus on Sunday, April 16. At age 107! I will never forget talking with him at length on the phone when he was a mere 102.
This excellent 10-minute Generous Giving video about Stanley is well worth watching:
Here’s what I shared on my blog about Stanley in 2021:
When I was writing my book Giving Is the Good Life, there were some people of times past I wished I could have interviewed. One of them was Stanley Tam, whom I’d read about years earlier. I couldn’t find Stanley’s date of death online, but considering he was born in 1915, it seemed safe to assume he had already died. I contacted a friend who’d known Stanley to find out more about his life. I was shocked by his response: “Want to talk to Stanley on the phone this Saturday?”
To my delight, I spoke with then-102-year-old Stanley Tam.
Here’s his story, with parts of our conversation woven in.
In 1934, as a young door-to-door salesman, Stanley Tam met a farmer’s wife who told him about Jesus. Six weeks later, while in a church, he placed his faith in Christ.
With twenty-five dollars of his own in his pocket, plus twelve dollars from his father, he launched United States Plastic Corporation, in Lima, Ohio.
Stanley told me, “I started the business in 1936, and I soon went broke. I was so discouraged. Then the Lord spoke to me: ‘Turn it over to me; I’ll make it succeed.’”
He legally made God the company’s majority owner—51 percent of company stock was given to a nonprofit, which in turn gave all the earnings to God’s Kingdom. Stanley believed that God wanted to run the business with Stanley as his employee.
God Was Just Getting Started
It turned out 51 percent wasn’t enough!
Stanley became familiar with an effective international ministry that he heard was closing due to lack of funds. He contacted them and said, “If I could trust God to provide $50,000 more per year to give you, would you open the ministry back up?”
They said yes.
In our conversation over the phone, Stanley’s voice grew animated, and he sounded half of his 102 years. He told me, “That ministry is still going. We’re now in forty-two countries, and we have thousands of people going door-to-door bringing people God’s Word and the plan of salvation.”
I loved that he said “we.” Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be (Matthew 6:21), and when you give to God’s work, you invest in his Kingdom. You are thinking and acting like someone with vested interests. When we spoke in 2017, more than 140,000 people had professed Christ the previous year through the ministry Stanley supported, and many churches had been planted.
Stanley told me about a meeting in South America in 1955 where he spoke and saw God work powerfully in people’s lives. He explained, “God spoke to me and said, ‘Stanley, if a soul is the most precious thing in the world, would you go back to the United States and turn your entire business over to me? And would you use the profits to spread the gospel around the world?’”
“Lord, you already have 51 percent of it,” Stanley replied. “Isn’t that enough?”
Then Stanley sensed God saying to him, “Stanley, on the cross, I paid it all for you. Now you’re my disciple. And I want you to do what I ask.”
A Call to Obedience
You might be thinking that since Stanley is an extraordinary man of faith, this all came easily for him. It didn’t.
Stanley said, “You’ll never know the struggle I went through that night. Finally I said, ‘All right Lord, you can have it.’” He added, “I just wanted to be obedient.”
Stanley’s wife, Juanita, agreed to follow the Lord in this too, and the Tams gave 100 percent of the company to God, meaning all the profits went to gospel ministry. It was only then that Stanley found the joy in giving over to God what he knew belonged to him. Stanley had a new plant built, four times bigger and facing an interstate, with huge letters installed on the side of the building: “Christ Is the Answer.”
Though Stanley’s salary was a mere fraction of that of a typical CEO, he gave substantially out of his income. In fact, he told me, “When my salary was $78,000, our personal giving was about $30,000.”
The company now produces more than 30,000 products and serves more than 85,000 customers. Stanley Tam had a wonderful business career in which he brought the world high-quality plastics. But more important, he brought the world what will last forever.
Serving God in the Twilight Years
What did Stanley do when he retired? He opened a small woodworking shop a mile up the street. His sign outside said, “Are you seeking peace in your heart? The answer is in the Bible.” Underneath was this offer: “Come inside for a free Bible.”
Wes Lytle, Stanley’s successor as president of U.S. Plastic Corp., said, “We’re different than most companies. We’re similar in that we want to make as much money as we possibly can, but the purpose is totally different. . . . What is that purpose? To give away as much money as we possibly can, for the glory of Jesus and the good of others!”1 U.S. Plastic Corp. has cumulatively contributed more than $150 million to God’s Kingdom.
Is Stanley Tam “coasting” now that he’s nearing the end of his life? Not even close. At the time we talked, he was praying a few hours in the morning and again in the evening. He told me, “I’ve talked to more than one hundred people about Jesus in this retirement home. And I’ve led twelve to the Lord.”
If we truly believe that God owns everything and that we owe him everything for giving us all the goodness we’ve ever known or will ever know, then Stanley Tam’s actions make perfect sense. While the details of our circumstances may vary, the heart behind generosity can be the same. Stanley’s life, and the lives of others like him, should stir us to say, “What can I do that would express the same faith in God’s ownership and lordship of all I am and all I own?”
At the end of our conversation, Tam said, “People used to tell me, ‘Stanley, you’re giving it all away! Why aren’t you keeping it?’ I told them, ‘I am putting it in the bank account in Heaven.’”
As I heard Stanley speak, I could imagine another voice—a louder and stronger voice—saying to him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
If you’re interested in learning more about Stanley’s story, here’s an hour-long documentary of his life. And here’s a 39-minute presentation that Stanley gave ten years ago. His story is also told in the book God Owns My Business.
I’ll say it again: well done, good and faithful servant! So glad for Stanley that he has finally entered fully into his Master’s happiness. No doubt the many greetings in his “rich welcome” (2 Peter 1:11 NIV)/“grand reception” (NLT)/“lavish reception” (BSB) are still going on!
May 26, 2023
What Does It Mean to Be Filled to Overflowing with the Holy Spirit?
Note from Randy: Scripture tells us it is God’s will that we be filled with and controlled by His Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:17-18). What does that mean? My friend Kurt Nelson explains more in this excerpt from his book Awakening to the Holy Spirit: Person, Presence, Power, Purpose in Our Lives. As I mentioned on my blog before, most of us know far less about the Holy Spirit than the Father and the Son, but we need to see Him and His work with new wonder and appreciation. I highly recommend this booklet!
In Ephesians 5:18, the Apostle Paul exhorts the Ephesian believers with a command, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit (NASB)”. The phrase “be filled with the Spirit” is a present, plural, passive imperative, meaning that God commands (not an option!) you, me, and all believers to continuously go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a must! It is essential. It is a constant. And we cannot do it ourselves!
By faith, we must continuously depend upon the divine Person of the Holy Spirit to be filled to the full, fully supplied, or as it were, overflowing, with the indwelling Spirit of God. This filling or overflow of the Spirit is exactly what Jesus had in mind when He proclaimed, “‘Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:38-39).
Since we are commanded to continuously go on being filled with the Holy Spirit, this clearly implies that we may choose to obey (or disobey) this command. Obviously, sinning against, grieving, or quenching the Spirit will significantly, if not completely, hinder the powerful flow of the ministry of the Holy Spirit through our lives. On the positive side, what can we do to increase or enhance the overflow of the Spirit’s work through our lives? The short answer is to simply pray daily and continuously ask God to fill us to overflowing with the Person, presence, power, and ministries of the Holy Spirit!
My friend and longtime associate at East-West, Dr. Joe Wall, recently reminded me that according to Scripture, there are two primary ways in which the Holy Spirit fills us. First, the Holy Spirit supernaturally fills us with wisdom, understanding, and the knowledge of God’s will.
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives … .” (Colossians 1:9)
The Spirit also fills our lives and our speech with praise, worship, and thanksgiving to God.
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”(-Ephesians 5:18-20)
These passages both contain the Greek word pleroo, which means that the entirety of our lives should be constantly filled and overflowing with the supernatural character of God.
Second, the Holy Spirit also fills us with supernatural power for ministry, most notably for the proclamation and advancement of the gospel as we see in Acts 2:4 (miraculously speaking in unknown languages), Acts 4:8 (Peter preaching boldly before the Sanhedrin), and Acts 4:31 (believers speaking the Word of God boldly). These verses contain the Greek word pletho, which carries the meaning of our being filled with supernatural power for ministry. Both types of filling are a result of the supernatural indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, and both are the result of our trust in, obedience to, and reliance upon God to fill and use us.
In Luke’s Gospel, one of Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. In response, Jesus taught them what we refer to as the Lord’s Prayer, followed by a parable that encourages greater boldness (shameless audacity) in prayer with an exhortation to repeatedly “ask,” “seek,” and “knock” (Matthew 7:7). Jesus compares the relative goodness of human fathers to the absolute and perfect goodness of God, our Heavenly Father, when He says, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13)
The clear message here is that the great gift that our Father delights to give to all of His children is the Holy Spirit “to those who ask Him!” Since all born-again believers already have the Holy Spirit permanently indwelling them, the prayer we should pray every day is to ask God to so fill us with His Holy Spirit that we are overflowing with His supernatural presence, power, gifts, and fruits, so that “rivers of living water” will flow through our lives to bless and serve those around us on a daily basis (John 7:38).
“The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people.” —A.W. Tozer
May 24, 2023
Tim Keller Is Now Home with Jesus
Last Friday, May 19, author and retired pastor Tim Keller entered into the presence of His Lord and Savior. I have always appreciated his thoughtful, biblical, and Christ-centered insights, and have often recommended his books, messages, and online videos. I love that brother and prayed for his healing since his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer—knowing that healing is always temporary in this life, and asking that if God didn’t heal him that He would prepare Tim for that better world. And God has answered that prayer, and the prayer of countless others around the world, by bringing Tim into His presence, where he has experienced complete healing and great joy.
The Gospel Coalition shared this in their announcement of Tim’s death:
In 2021, Keller spoke on a podcast with Hansen, Kevin DeYoung, and Justin Taylor about his experience with terminal cancer and how it has focused his spiritual life.
“I think the way I handle imminent death,” Keller said, “is by fighting my sin and getting deeper communion with God. That’s certainly how John Owen did it, as you know. His Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, the last thing he wrote, was basically how he was dealing with his imminent death. And that’s what I’m trying to do too.”
His experience of seeking deeper communion with God is exactly what I saw in Nanci’s life during her cancer years. Michael Keller, Tim’s son, wrote about his dad’s passing: “Timothy J. Keller, husband, father, grandfather, mentor, friend, pastor, and scholar died this morning at home. Dad waited until he was alone with Mom. She kissed him on the forehead, and he breathed his last breath. We take comfort in some of his last words: ‘There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest.’ See you soon, Dad.”
I quoted from Tim in several of my books, but especially in It’s All About Jesus, which is a collection of quotations about our Savior. Hope you enjoy these rich and meaningful insights from Tim. May His legacy of exalting Jesus through his words live on and continue to impact many for the Kingdom.
“In the whole history of the world, there is only one person who not only claimed to be God himself but also got enormous numbers of people to believe it. Only Jesus combines claims of divinity with the most beautiful life of humanity.”
“Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach.”
“Because he was thrown into that storm for you, you can be sure that there’s love at the heart of this storm for you.”
“When you read the Gospels, you are seeing God’s perfections… in all their breath-taking, real-life forms. You can know the glories of God from the Old Testament, but in Jesus Christ they come near.”
“The mission God gave Jonah meant possible death and suffering… Jonah, however, refused to go, thinking only of himself. The mission God gave Jesus, however, meant certain death and infinite suffering, and yet he went, thinking not of himself but of us.”
“Jesus didn’t come to tell us the answers to the questions of life, he came to be the answer.”
“After creation God said, ‘It is finished’—and he rested. After redemption Jesus said, ‘It is finished’—and we can rest.”
“The fact that Jesus had to die for me humbled me out of my pride. The fact that Jesus was glad to die for me assured me out of my fear.”
“If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.”
“The founders of every major religion said, ‘I’ll show you how to find God.’ Jesus said, ‘I am God who has come to find you.’”
“If you think it takes courage to be with Jesus, consider that it took infinitely more courage for him to be with you. Only Christianity says one of the attributes of God is courage. No other religion has a God who needed courage.”
“Everything in the Hebrew worldview militated against the idea that a human being could be God. Jews would not even pronounce the name ‘Yahweh’ nor spell it. And yet Jesus Christ—by his life, by his claims, and by his resurrection—convinced his closest Jewish followers that he was not just a prophet telling them how to find God, but God himself come to find us.”
“If we think we are not all that bad, the idea of grace will never change us. Change comes by seeing a need for a Savior and getting one.”
“Jesus himself is the main argument for why we should believe Christianity.”
“All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart.”
“The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.”
May 22, 2023
Awakening to the Forgotten Person of the Holy Spirit
Most of us know far less about the Holy Spirit than the Father and the Son, but we need to see Him and His work with new wonder and appreciation. I highly recommend this booklet! (And I’m grateful for Kurt’s faithful service as president and CEO of East-West Ministries, which seeks to glorify God by multiplying followers of Jesus in the spiritually darkest areas of the world. They currently operate in more than 70 countries around the world, and I love what they are doing.)
If you were to be quizzed on your knowledge of God as Father, God as Son, and God as Holy Spirit, how would you do on your knowledge of the Person and the work of the Holy Spirit?
Well, I’m embarrassed to say that even as a seminary graduate and having followed Jesus for more than 50 years, I would score miserably on my knowledge of the Person and work of God the Holy Spirit. Well, at least until I began reading through the Scriptures with fresh eyes and a fresh desire to better know God as the Holy Spirit.
My observation of the Holy Spirit’s prevalence in Scripture as I read through the Bible in 90 days provoked me to take a deeper look. Sadly, I’ve allowed myself to be influenced by church culture, theological debate, doctrinal extremes, and abuses. In doing so, I’ve failed to seek to know and understand the Person and work of the Holy Spirit as I should. Frankly, I need to continue growing my knowledge of God as Father, of Jesus the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The great news is that God’s Word says we can make strides in getting to know God better. We can grow in our knowledge of God.
“‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord ... .” -Jeremiah 29:13-14, NASB
God wants you to discover Him, and if you make the effort, He says, “I’m findable. I’m discoverable.”
The Person of the Holy Spirit
Here’s my thesis regarding the Holy Spirit: In order to awaken ourselves to the heart and work of God—to know Him and make Him known—we must first awaken ourselves to the Person, the presence, the power, and the purpose of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
How do we do that?
To awaken to the Person of the Holy Spirit, a daily relationship is required.
A few years ago, I was meditating on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in my life, and I was convicted of my own wrong and insufficient thinking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, although He’s forceful. The Holy Spirit is not a mystical being, although He’s full of mystery. The Holy Spirit is not an inanimate power, although He’s all-powerful. The Holy Spirit is a Person.
He’s a personal being.
Just like the Father and the Son are persons, the Holy Spirit is a Person like you and me.
He has intellect. He has emotion. He has will. And the Holy Spirit is to be pursued and known and loved and related to as a Person on a daily basis, as are the Father and the Son. Here’s a list of what the Scriptures say about the personal nature of the Holy Spirit.
He walks with us (Galatians 5:25).
He speaks to us (1 Corinthians 2:10, 14; 1 Timothy 4:1).
He lives in us forever (John 14:16-17).
He comforts us (John 14:16, KJV).
He counsels us (John 14:26, AMP).
He teaches us (John 14:26).
He reminds us (John 14:26).
He leads us (Galatians 5:18).
He helps us to pray (Romans 8:26).
He reveals truth to us (1 Corinthians 2:10).
He cleanses us (Titus 3:5, AMP).
He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30).
He gives us life (2 Corinthians 3:6).
He carries a sword (Ephesians 6:17).
He gives many great gifts (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4).
He fills us with God’s love (Romans 5:5).
Do you see how personal these are? These wonderful gifts all come to us through the Person of God the Holy Spirit. Seek Him, pursue Him, and get to know Him better every single day. Deepen your understanding of His Person, His workings, and His ways. The Holy Spirit is a Person.
Photo by Josh Eckstein on Unsplash
May 19, 2023
Material Wealth Is Not the Good Life
In 2007, actor Owen Wilson slashed his wrists in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. People magazine’s cover story about the “funny man who had it all” implied that his material abundance gave him every reason to live. Public shock over his actions unveiled the widespread belief that money, fame, cars, sex, a second home on the shores of Maui, and the whole celebrity package really do buy happiness. After all, wasn’t Owen Wilson living the good life?
In a subsequent issue of People, one letter to the editor astutely asked, “If a red-hot career, traveling the globe, a Malibu mansion and million-dollar paychecks didn’t prevent Owen’s ‘demons’ from rearing their ugly heads before the August incident, why would they do the trick now?”
The irony is inescapable: most of Owen Wilson’s fans would have, in a heartbeat, exchanged their mundane, commonplace lives for that of their idol. But the trade would have given them the life Wilson desperately wanted out of.
Most of us don’t have access to the amount of money and possessions celebrities do, but a similar story plays out in countless lives. If money were enough to constitute the good life, why does the prosperity-driven United States have a higher per capita suicide rate than war-torn, tragedy-plagued, poverty-riddled Sudan?
One thing is clear: what’s relentlessly advertised and sold to us as the good life is not the abundant life Jesus said He came to give in John 10:10.
Exchanging Good Things for Great Things
Nanci and I once spent five days aboard a ship that belongs to Operation Mobilization. The Logos Hope goes from port to port, bringing the gospel message all over the world. The volunteer teams use street dramas and music to share the Good News; other crew members distribute Bibles and Christian books to people visiting the ship’s huge bookstore.
While docked in Jamaica, we watched a crew of four hundred young people from sixty different nations welcome and serve thousands of visitors. Some also left the ship for the day to serve the poor in surrounding communities.
As we talked late into the night with crew members, we heard laughter and stories of God’s life-giving grace. These young people, many with little cash in their pockets and without credit cards, could have been making much more money doing something else. We might have felt sorry for them, since accommodations and food service on the Logos Hope are more like a warship than a cruise ship, and they often worked long hours at menial chores. Instead, we envied them, because while it wasn’t a perfect life, for most it was clearly an authentic, rewarding, happy-making life.
Nanci and I met Audrey, a young woman from the Philippines who had been serving for a year in the ship’s laundry. She told us a story about people trusting Christ after she spoke to them. Even though she didn’t know their language and they didn’t know hers, they had somehow understood her words. She’d witnessed a miracle. Her face beaming with joy, she said, “Every time I remember this story, I’m constantly amazed how limitless and how powerful our God is. It is such a privilege to be bringing this hope to all the people!”
So who lives the good life: Owen Wilson or Audrey on the Logos Hope?
What Jesus Said about Wealth
Google “the good life,” and you’ll find advice from both secular and religious sources on how to achieve a life worth living. Some of these attempt to temper the money-centered worldview. An article on MarketWatch.com entitled “The Good Life Is Not Only about Money” says, “Being healthy and wealthy have always been two well-known ingredients of happiness,” but it goes on to point out the importance of “being spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy.”
Still, when I searched for “he’s living the good life,” the first two videos that popped up were people in plush surroundings, the first one flipping through a huge stack of cash and singing about partying, and the second one lounging in a luxury resort. A third was about a famous nightclub. One article was titled “The Keys to Building Wealth and Living the Good Life.”
Neither the videos nor the article clearly defines the good life. Why? Because the creators assume the viewers and the readers agree it’s about accumulating and spending lots of money to purchase happiness.
Yet despite both personal experiences and studies indicating money alone doesn’t bring the good life, countless people think and live and make choices as if it does.
Every truth seeker must grasp how fundamentally flawed this worldview really is. To correct this fatal perspective, Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15, NIV).
The last portion of this verse is rendered this way in different translations:
Your true life is not made up of the things you own. (GNT)
Life is not measured by how much you own. (NLT)
Even if a man has much more than he needs, it cannot give him life. (WE)
Jesus immediately followed this statement with the parable of the rich fool, turning our idea of the good life upside down:
There was a rich man who had some land, which grew a good crop. He thought to himself, “What will I do? I have no place to keep all my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and other goods. Then I can say to myself, ‘I have enough good things stored to last for many years. Rest, eat, drink, and enjoy life!’” (Luke 12:16-19, NCV)
So far, doesn’t this story sound great? Store up lots of money for yourself, retire early, and live large!
These different translations of verse 19 capture the rich man’s philosophy, which sounds remarkably like the American dream:
Live it up! Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself. (CEV)
Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry. (RSV)
Relax! Eat, drink and have a good time! (PHILLIPS)
You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life! (MSG)
Jesus didn’t accuse the man of dishonesty, theft, or injustice. For all we know, he might have faithfully attended synagogue. He was living the life others dreamed of. What’s wrong with that?
Then comes the big surprise: “But God said to him, ‘You fool! Tonight you will die. Then who will get what you have stored up?’” (Luke 12:20, CEV).
What derailed the rich man’s attempts to live what he believed was the good life? First, death. Second, God’s judgment on his now irreversible life. In the predigital age, a high school photography teacher taught me how to develop photos by immersing photo paper in solutions. As long as the photograph remains in the developing solution, it can change. But once it’s dropped into the stop bath, it’s permanently fixed. Likewise, when we die and enter eternity, our lives on Earth will be permanently fixed, never again to be altered or revised. “People are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, NIV).
The rich man wasn’t merely a fool like the kind described in the book of Proverbs, who still had an opportunity to repent and choose wisdom (see, for example, Proverbs 26). God’s appraisal of us after we die is final. There’s no reset button, no do-overs. If at the end of your life God calls you a fool, you’ll be a fool forever.
This parable serves as a warning to all of us. Jesus applies the rich fool’s experience to that of others: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). To lay up treasures for ourselves and not be rich toward God means clinging to our riches instead of honoring God by helping those who are physically and spiritually needy.
Adapted from Randy’s book Giving Is the Good Life .
May 17, 2023
Joining the Real Party in Heaven
Imagine someone takes you to a party. You see a few friends there, enjoy a couple of good conversations, a little laughter, and some decent appetizers. The party’s all right, but you keep hoping it will get better. Give it another hour, and maybe it will. Suddenly, your friend says, “I need to take you home.”
Now?
You’re disappointed—nobody wants to leave a party early—but you leave, and your friend drops you off at your house. As you approach the door, you’re feeling all alone and sorry for yourself. As you open the door and reach for the light switch, you sense someone’s there. Your heart’s in your throat. You flip on the light.
“Surprise!” Your house is full of smiling people, familiar faces.
It’s a party—for you. You smell your favorites—barbecued ribs and pecan pie right out of the oven. The tables are full. It’s a feast. You recognize the guests, people you haven’t seen for a long time. Then, one by one, the people you most enjoyed at the other party show up at your house, grinning. This turns out to be the real party. You realize that if you’d stayed longer at the other party, as you’d wanted, you wouldn’t be at the real party—you’d be away from it.
Christians faced with terminal illness or imminent death often feel they’re leaving the party before it’s over. They have to go home early. They’re disappointed, thinking of all they’ll miss when they leave. But the truth is, the real party is underway at home—precisely where they’re going. They’re not the ones missing the party; those of us left behind are. (Fortunately, if we know Jesus, we’ll get there eventually.)
One by one, occasionally a few of us at a time, we’ll disappear from this world. Those we leave behind will grieve that their loved ones have left home. In reality, however, their believing loved ones aren’t leaving home, they’re going home. They’ll be home before us. We’ll be arriving at the party a little later. (I should mention that the fact that Heaven will be wonderful shouldn’t tempt us to take shortcuts to get there. As long as God keeps you here on Earth, it’s exactly where He wants you. If you are considering taking your own life, recognize this as the devil’s temptation. In John 8:44, Jesus said that Satan is a liar and a murderer. He tells lies because he wants to destroy you. Don’t listen to the liar. Listen to Jesus, the truth teller. Don’t make a terrible ending to your life’s story—finish your God-given course on Earth. When He’s done—not before—He’ll take you home in His own time and way.)
Remember, Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Luke 6:21). He said, “There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). Laughter and rejoicing—a party awaits us. Don’t you want to join it? Yet even that party, in the present Heaven, is a preliminary celebration. It’s like the welcome at the airport for a woman who’s come home for her wedding. Sure, she’s home now, and it’s wonderful, but what she’s really looking forward to is the wedding, and the wedding feast, which will be followed by moving into her new home with her beloved bridegroom.
In Heaven: Your Real Home, Joni Eareckson Tada writes:
Without question, the most marvelous thing of all about heaven— heaven’s supreme delight—will be unbroken fellowship with God Himself.
The closer we draw to the Lord Jesus and the more we set our hearts and minds on heavenly glories above, the better prepared we shall be for heaven’s perfection. Fellowship won’t mean sitting at the feet of Jesus and fighting back boredom while everyone else is enraptured. No. Fellowship will be the best of what earthly friendship merely hinted at.
. . . Heaven’s Wedding Supper of the Lamb will be the perfect party. The Father has been sending out invitations and people have been RSVP-ing through the ages. Jesus has gone ahead to hang the streamers, prepare the feast, and make our mansion ready. And like any party, what will make it sweet is the fellowship.
Fellowship with our glorious Savior and with our friends and family.
To be in resurrected bodies on a resurrected Earth in resurrected friendships, enjoying a resurrected culture with the resurrected Jesus—now that will be the ultimate party! In his book The Promise of Heaven, Douglas Connelly says,
When Jesus talked about the future, he pictured it most often as a party! Jesus was criticized regularly during his earthly ministry for having too much fun. The uptight religious people called Jesus a drunkard and a friend of low-class sinners. Even the followers of John the Baptizer were scandalized that Jesus didn’t require his disciples to put on sad faces and skip meals. Jesus enjoyed banquets and parties on earth because they reminded him so much of heaven—and because they provided wonderful opportunities to teach people how the social rules will change when Jesus is in charge.
In Heaven, everybody will be who God made them to be—and none of us will ever suffer or die again. As a Christian, the day I die will be the best day I’ve ever lived. But it won’t be the best day I ever will live. Resurrection day will be far better. And the first day on the New Earth—that will be one big step for mankind, one giant leap for God’s glory.
Browse more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including Heaven .
Photo by Ivan Samkov
May 15, 2023
Who or What Is Our Primary Source of Happiness?
Happiness can’t be bigger than its source. God is primary; all other forms of happiness—relationships, created things, and material pleasures—are secondary. If we don’t consciously see God as their source, these secondary things intended for enjoyment can master us.
Things such as winning a game, a promotion, or a contest; or taking a new job or a vacation are too small to bring big happiness. God, on the other hand, “satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (Psalm 107:9). We’re finite and fallen, and we lack what’s required for happiness. All those who look within themselves for pleasures and delight are doomed to misery. We just aren’t big enough and good enough to supply the happiness we crave!
Christ-followers enjoy what God provides first and foremost because they enjoy the God who provides them. Unlike us, God is infinite and without flaws. Secondary things bring some joy, but God alone is our “exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4). Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) wrote, “It is the infinite Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your hunger after happiness, otherwise there shall still be a want of satisfaction to your desires.”
Secondary things are not incidental or unimportant— they’re God’s gifts to draw us to Him—so we should never disdain the created world. But by putting God first and His creation second, the world and its beauties become instruments of joy and worship. We love them better when we love God more than them.
Why do we watch the World Series or the Olympics? Why do we go to the Grand Canyon, the Alps, or the ocean? Why do we want to get near bigness and beauty and magnificence? Because we find happiness in beholding what’s greater than ourselves. It’s what we’re made for: an infinitely great, happy-making God.
When an atheist enjoys the cool breeze of a sunny autumn day as he writes his treatise on God’s nonexistence, the source of his pleasure is God. For God is the author of the universe itself: the Earth, cool breezes, sunny days, the atheist made in God’s image, the physical sensations that give the capacity to enjoy nature, and even the powers of rational thought the atheist uses to argue against God.
One of the keys to enjoying life is connecting the dots between our happiness and God as its provider, as well as between our happiness and God’s own happiness. When I run with my dog or look at Jupiter dominating the sky over Mount Hood, I experience happiness. Unbelievers are capable of enjoying happiness in exactly the same things, but their happiness can’t be as immense or enduring, because they stop short of recognizing the one whose overflowing reservoir of happiness has spilled over into His creation.
This helps us understand what Asaph says in Psalm 73: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (verse 25). Is Asaph saying he doesn’t desire food, water, clothes, shelter, friendship, and laughter? No. He’s saying, in essence, “Of the many things I desire, at the core of all of them is God Himself. Therefore, all that I desire is summed up in God alone.”
As I write this, I’m looking up from my computer at a photo I took underwater. It reminds me of the sheer delight of my unforgettable ninety-minute encounter with a wonderful monk seal I named Molly.
Whenever I look at Molly’s photo, my heart fills with joyful memories and longing for the New Earth’s joy and the days that await us. That anticipation gives me a harvest of happiness today. Of course, many people who don’t know God love to snorkel and dive. They’re truly moved by the enchanting beauty of the reef.
But an immense part of my happiness as I snorkel is knowing God, the primary, who made all these secondary wonders. I sense His presence with me—both when I’m out in His ocean and as I sit in my home remembering His nearness, both then and now. This is a shared experience between my God and me, and even as I type, the memories of countless hours spent in the water together with Him, enjoying His beautiful underwater kingdom, bring joyful tears to my eyes. The beautiful coral reef and its wondrous creatures don’t draw me away from God—they draw me to Him. But if I were to worship them and not the God who made them, I would not only displease Him, I would diminish and ruin them.
In the movie The Avengers, Thor’s brother, the evil Loki, weary of the Incredible Hulk, says to him in a commanding voice, “Enough! . . . I am a god, you dull creature!” The Hulk, unimpressed, picks up Loki with one hand and gives him a merciless thrashing, pounding him into the ground. As he walks away, the Hulk turns back toward Loki, looking disgusted, and mutters, “Puny god.” Loki, utterly defeated, gives a pathetic little squeak.
All idols are not only false gods but also puny gods. The very gifts of God that can bring us great joy become dismally small when we make them primary. Only the true God is big enough to bear the weight of all our happiness, and the larger we see Him, the bigger our happiness in Him.
In the mid-1600s, Puritan John Gibbon said, “God alone is enough, but without him, nothing [is enough] for thy happiness.” Whether or not we’re conscious of it, since God is the fountainhead of happiness, the search for happiness is always the search for God.
Excerpted from Randy's book 60 Days of Happiness .
May 12, 2023
Will We Retain Our Individuality Living on the New Earth?
While teaching my Eternity 101 class, I answered the question, “Will We Lose Our Personalities in Heaven?” Below is my response, followed by an edited transcript:
Our friends each have certain mannerisms—a unique combination involving their sense of humor, personalities, and certain ways and idiosyncrasies. People ask if we will lose those in Heaven and my response is, “Why would we?”
Of course, if you’re talking about something sinful, we’ll lose that. But their sin nature is not likely what you enjoy about your friends.
Where does this variety come from? Who made our friends? Who made each of us? God did! And since God’s in charge, what possible reason can explain His reasons for making us other than who we are, except to make us the same people only better? We’ll be completely righteous.
Would He take away from us on the New Earth the gifts He’s given to us on this earth? Would He take away from us in Heaven the particular interests and passions He’s given us here?
I think we underestimate just how much of our lives here is from the hand of God in the first place. The life that we now know and the things we enjoy so much—the parts untainted by sin—we would naturally expect to have carried over, including distinctive personalities.
Besides, if we weren’t ourselves in the afterlife, then we couldn’t be held accountable for what we did in this life. The Judgment would be meaningless. If Barbara is no longer Barbara, she can’t be rewarded or held accountable for anything Barbara did. She’d have to say, “But that wasn’t me.” The doctrines of judgment and eternal rewards depend on people’s retaining their distinct identities from this life to the next.
Too often, we import concepts from eastern religions into our view of the afterlife. We’re influenced by ideas like: “We’ll all be absorbed into that great cosmic consciousness. None of us will be individuals. There will be perfect unity. The ‘old’ person who was will no longer be.”
From a biblical perspective, that’s nonsense. God made us individuals, and we will always be individuals. You can have unity with other individuals, which we’ll experience as all being part of the bride of Christ. But the obliteration of individuality is not taught in Scripture.
Browse more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including Heaven .
Photo by Melanie Kanzler on Unsplash
