As I’ve often said, A. W. Tozer is one of my favorite all-time authors. I love what he says here, and what I also love is that elsewhere He affirms God’s holiness, justice and wrath in uncompromising ways, then gives us this beautiful depiction of God’s love for His children, and His delight in us
Believers periodically tell me versions of the following: “We shouldn’t be thinking about reunion with loved ones, or the joys of Heaven. We should only be thinking about being united with Christ, who is our only treasure.” This sounds spiritual, but is it?
In Scripture, God is said to enjoy, love, laugh, take delight, and rejoice, as well as be angry, happy, jealous, and glad. Rather than viewing these actions and descriptors as mere anthropomorphisms, we should consider that our emotions are derived from God’s.
God delights in his children’s enjoyment of one another. True, Christ alone is sufficient to meet all our needs. Yet, God has designed us for relationship not only with himself but also with others of our kind.
Does studying God—and doctrine—have to be a dull discipline, or can it be an exhilarating exercise that transforms your life? I believe that theology is the foundation upon which worldview is built. People have good worldviews because they have good theology and bad worldviews because they have bad theology. I say this partly because I can't divorce heart orientation from theology. The word believe in the New Testament (for example, in John’s gospel) stresses belief as trust and submission. This is my approach to theology. It’s not a dried up system of intellectual affirmations divorced from a passion for God; rather, it is a life-transforming belief of both seeing and embracing God’s truth. It is a belief that is a trust—one which permeates your mind and heart and life.
Our friend Amy Guerino recently wrote a thoughtful blogpost that really spoke to me. I asked her permission to share it with you here.
The Pressure to Accomplish Snuffs Out the Pleasure of Being God's ChildPeasant Woman Threading a Needle by Jules Breton
“To live in the past and future is easy. To live in the present is like threading a needle.”
~ Walker Percy in Lancelot
In his book Conformed to His Image Kenneth Boa explains, “For many people, life has become so filled with if-only of the future that today becomes an inconvenient obstacle in the path of reaching tomorrow…We have a natural tendency to invest our energies in goals and accomplishments we hope to achieve in the days ahead. The problem is that even when we are able to attain these ends, we are already thinking of the next one. Thus, by moving from one product to product, we are rarely alive to the realities of the present.”
With the deaths of several celebrities on the forefront of people's minds, I want to focus this week's question and answer on Heaven. Because the reality is, as human beings, we all have a terminal disease called mortality. The current death rate is 100 percent. Unless Christ returns soon, we’re all going to die. We don’t like to think about death; yet, worldwide, 3 people die every second, 180 every minute, and nearly 11,000 every hour. If the Bible is right about what happens to us after death, it means that more than 250,000 ...
If you haven’t seen this video, it’ll make your day. I just watched it again as I took a brief break from final revisions on my book.
Think of it as God’s common grace at work in this world. In the midst of mundane pressures and cares, including yours and mine and those of commuters in Antwerp, Belgium, comes sheer delight. A gift. And all gifts are ultimately from Him, the Creator behind all that is creative, the Delight behind the delightful, the Good behind all goodness.
Let it remind you of God’s gifts, large and ...
Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
A few years ago, my wife Nanci showed me an article she had found in her Family Circle magazine. The article was titled "What You Pass On." It was written by author Stephen King. He's not a writer known for his theological insights, but what he wrote echoes the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 5:15 in his assessment of the futility of materialism. Buffet, Gates and Jolie will weigh in afterward. Here's what King has to say:
A couple of years ago I found out ...
Before getting back to serious blogs, let me talk about laughter. (With a Brian Regan video at the end I think you'll enjoy.)
©1991 - 2012 Eternal Perspective Ministries. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy
