Who Do You Want To See In Heaven?

Who are looking forward to seeing in heaven? Many would say the Lord, or most people would say some great man or woman of faith that we read about in the Bible. How wonderful it would be to speak with the apostle Paul? Or to ask Daniel what it was like in the lion’s den? Perhaps ancestors of ours that passed long ago that we never met on earth. While these are worthy answers and I agree with them, I would have a different answer to the question, “who are you looking forward to seeing in heaven?”

I can’t wait to see my wife and kids.

Statistically speaking, women seem to have longer life spans than their husbands. I certainly know more widows than widowers, so I am well aware of the fact that I may pass from this life before my wife and certainly hope so before my kids. I also know that once I’m gone, I can do no more to affect their spiritual life. I can’t open and read the Bible with them, pray with them, attend worship with them, and guide them once I’m gone.

If I hope to see them in heaven someday, I need to do all I can, while I can, to increase that hope. Some husbands/fathers neglect the spiritual responsibility as the head of the house. A husband may encourage his wife to dress inappropriately in public to “show her off” to other men. A father may let his children “experience” the world. The man believes he is obeying God and yet he is failing miserably. The souls of his family are in danger, if not his own soul.

A husband is to treat his wife the way Christ treats the church (Ephesians 5:25-33). A father is to raise his children in the faith (Ephesians 6:4). How sad it would be to know the judgment day has come and gone and to never see the people that mean the most to you on this earth.

But let us look at it from another point of view…

What am I doing to make sure that my wife and kids will see ME in heaven?

There are some men that have, for the lack of a better term, “secret” sins. These could be sins that their family does not know about. This might be an addiction to pornography. It may be an extramarital affair during business trips. It may just be anger and hatred they harbor in their hearts for others. If we go back to the scenario where the man dies before the wife, she may believe her husband is waiting for her in the heavenly abode. She never knew what her husband was up to all those years. Suppose she holds on to the hope of seeing him again for another 20 years. How sad it would be for him to be in torment, eternally separated from his wife!

When the angels carry my godly wife into paradise, I want to be there to rejoice with her!

When my children see Jesus face to face, I want to be standing right beside them!

Who do YOU want to see in heaven?

 

Pickle Salvation

I recently did a word study on the word “baptism”, especially as it is used in Acts 2:38. The Greek word is “baptizo” and was transliterated and not translated. It was anglicized into baptize instead of rendered immersion because the King James translators viewed different modes of baptism i.e. pouring or sprinkling. They did not want to give the proper picture of what baptism is, an immersion.

I used the Blue Letter Bible app to do my study. It gave this illustration of the word baptism:

“This word should not be confused with baptô (911). The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (baptô) into boiling water and then ‘baptised’ (baptizô) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change.”

I understand this analogy well. My grandmother once made pickles in her kitchen when I was a kid. Once the cucumber was immersed in the vinegar, it certainly would never be the same!

Baptism produces a permanent change in us! Paul writes:

“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:3-7).

Baptism is not the washing of the dirt from the body, but it is the answer of a good conscience before God (1 Peter 3:21).

Baptism changes our direction in life, we have a new master that we obey (Romans 6:16).

Baptism provides the avenue to the blood of Christ that was shed to redeem all mankind (1 Peter 1:18,19).

Faith alone does not make a permanent change in your life! Confessing Jesus as Lord does not make a permanent change in your life! Professing repentance from sin does not make that permanent change in your life! Only after you’ve done these things and immersed in water will your life be permanently changed!

The “Lost” Parables

Luke 15 contains the record of three parables Jesus told, the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. The sinners and tax collectors were drawn to Jesus. Upon seeing this, the Pharisee’s said accused Jesus of receiving sinners and eating with them. They looked at this as reprehensible. No self-respecting Jewish leader would associate with such vile people. Jesus takes the opportunity to teach about His mission, to seek and save the lost.

I’m Adopted!

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:14,15

 The word “adopt” means to take into one’s family by legal means and raise as one’s own child. Every day, children that would have a horrible future ahead of them are adopted by a loving family that changes that future to one of happiness and joy. To literally change the outcome of a child’s life means everything to that child, and to the family that adopts them.

 When Paul wrote by inspiration that we are adopted by God, he was teaching a very powerful lesson. It is applied to Christians because God treats them as his children; he receives them into this relation, though they were by nature strangers and enemies. We have been brought into the family of God through the Spirit of God, that it, by the Word of God.

 We once had a future that was bleak. We know that all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. We needed a sacrifice for our sins as Isaiah puts it, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5,6

 When a child is adopted by a loving family, there is great joy. When a person is adopted by God, there is joy in heaven, among the angels and God, as Jesus told us in Luke 15. Do we want to change our futures? Do we want to continue a life of sorrow or life of hope? God is ready to adopt, are you ready to accept God’s terms for salvation?