Gifts Eternal

As I am trying to get good deals on Christmas gifts for my kids and my wife, I wanted to take a minute and reflect on gifts in general.  Yes, it is fun to open up that new tablet, new camera, or new 70” television.  But, these things only give us pleasure for a short while.  It is good to give the people you love things which make them happy and show them you care about them, but we need to keep these things in the proper perspective.  It is also good to receive gifts.  However, we cannot let these short lived pleasures take our eyes off the gift God has planned for all Christians.

I have been thinking about Heaven much more since I wrote a book about it last year.  That experience really helped me gain an eternal perspective on life.  I still slip into short term thinking quite often, but I am getting better about thinking about the eternal impacts of my daily choices.  Thinking about the treasure of Heaven really helps when I am having “one of those days.”  So, this shopping season I have been reflecting on the differences between the gifts we give one another and the gifts God gives to us.

The most basic of the gifts God gave us is creation itself; without which we of course would not be around to appreciate anything God has to offer.  But more than that, He went far beyond what was required to keep us alive on this planet when He created the universe.  He created a vast cosmos which boggles our minds and which we can admire.  He created this earth with such beauty and majesty when he could have created everything in shades of gray.  We would have been perfectly functional if gray were all we could see.  We might have had shape-lights instead of red-lights but we would have managed just fine.  However, He wanted us to enjoy His creation and so He gave us the gift of seeing the beautiful colors which He created.  With this gift we can admire the stunning colors of a butterfly, the incredible shades of red and pink in the sunset, and the thousands of different types of flowers.  God went way beyond what we needed in the gift of creation.

No list of gifts from God would be complete without listing the gift of Jesus.  We in no way deserved for the Son of God to die to solve our problems, but He wanted to do it.  Even though this was something extremely hard to do, it brought Him joy to give this gift to us: “who for the joy set before him endured the cross.” (Heb 12:2 NIV)  Yes, the gift of salvation cost Jesus dearly, but He gladly paid that price to give it to us.  Jesus’ sacrifice could have made it possible for us to be with God as his slaves or servants and that would have still been a great blessing.  But, God went far beyond what we needed with this gift and actually adopts us as His children and makes us co-heirs with Christ. (Gal 4:7, Rom 8:17)  Once again He gave us much more than what we needed.

There are many other blessings and gifts which God gives to us.  I could not possibly list them all, but I do want to help us focus on the gift, or the prize, for which we are all striving as Christians.  We need to constantly keep in the forefront of our minds the eternal gift of Heaven which God is preparing for us.  No amount of mega-television sets, tablets, iPhones, or whatever can compare to what awaits each of us.  We may think we are going way beyond what is needed in a gift we give to someone.  But, no matter how extravagant the gift, the happiness it brings will fade with time.  “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)  God is the only one who can truly meet our needs and even exceed them.

I am not saying we should not give gifts to each other (wife, did you catch that?).  I am merely saying we need to keep the gifts we give in perspective and give them for the same reasons God gives us gifts.  God’s gifts are all to enable us to have a relationship with Him and to help others do the same.  When we give a gift we should not expect the gift itself to work some miracle.  But, we should be focusing on how that gift will affect our relationship with the person we are giving it to.  The enjoyment of the gift will fade, but that relationship can last for all eternity.

While we are out fighting the crowds or online at home looking for that great deal on the perfect gift, we have to remember we cannot ever buy a perfect gift.  God is the only one who can give those.  It is good for us to give gifts to each other to show we care for each other.  However, we can only give things which may give temporary happiness.  That happiness will fade.  Only God can give gifts which give joy and happiness for all eternity.  Thank you God for this beautiful creation, the undeserved gift of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and the other blessings we have in this life.  But, most of all, thank you for the gift of Heaven which you have planned for us.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)

Heavenly Attitude

I came to a realization the other day while cutting the grass.  I should point out here that I do not particularly like cutting grass.  Actually, I pretty much have always hated it.  Simply having vegetation which holds my yard in place is pretty much sufficient for me.  If it is green vegetation, that is just a bonus.  However, my neighbors would not be very happy if I maintained my lawn this way.  So to maintain neighborly relations, I was cutting the grass.  While I was doing it this particular time, I was thinking about something I often tell my kids: Your attitude makes all the difference in whether you enjoy or hate doing something.

While I was cutting the grass, I started to think about how much I would rather be doing something else and started to have a bad attitude about the task at hand.  I knew if I looked at cutting the grass with a different perspective then I would be able to better enjoy the task.  I started thanking God for even having a yard with grass.  I thanked Him for my house and my family who lives there with me.   I went on to thank Him for many other things related to the house or the yard.  This change in perspective helped me to have a much better attitude about cutting the grass.

The concept that your attitude affects your enjoyment of what you are doing was not the realization that struck me that day.  I have known the importance of having a good attitude for many years.  It is something I continually try to impress upon my children and to practice myself.  I just have a hard time actually maintaining that good attitude all the time.  Two people can go through the same situation and one can hate it while the other can love it.  The difference in their level of enjoyment is purely based on their attitudes.  The same is true for upcoming events and whether you will view it with dread or fear.

A good example of how attitude affects your anticipation of an event happened in our house very recently.  A new school year just started.  We had one child who was extremely excited about the school year.  The other was fearful about many things and mostly dreaded it.  One chose to focus on the positive aspects and the other on the negative aspects and it totally shaped their attitudes about the upcoming event.  The one with the better attitude was able to look forward to and enjoy the first day of school.  Seeing how they approached this situation helped to emphasize that no matter what you are doing the better your attitude is toward that thing the more you will enjoy it.

The realization I had while cutting the grass was that our attitudes in Heaven will always be perfect.  Most people believe that in Heaven we will live in constant joy and I believe this to be true as well.  I cannot think of anything in the Bible which proves or disproves this belief.  But, it is hard to imagine having anything other than joy while being in the presence of God.  As we have seen, it is impossible to have joy with the wrong attitude.  Whatever we happen to be doing in Heaven we will have the best possible attitude about it.  This will lead us to receive the most enjoyment possible from whatever we are doing.  Of course, there is much more to Heaven than simply having the right attitude.  (You can read my book on Heaven (Heaven: Harps Optional) to see what I mean.)  It will certainly be easier in Heaven to have a good attitude since there will be no sickness or death.  However, even during this life, we can see how our attitude affects our enjoyment of any situation.  If Heaven is filled with joy, it must also be filled with people with awesome attitudes.

The closer we are to having the best possible attitude in this life, the closer we are to experiencing a little piece of Heaven right here.  When you find yourself upset about having to do something, try and change your perspective and your attitude to be more positive.  We cannot always do this of course but the more we attempt it the easier it becomes.  It may even become a habit if you work at it hard enough.  After it has been a habit long enough, it will simply be your character to have a positive attitude.  You will simply be that person who always has a good attitude and who people wish to be around.  That is what I am striving for but I have a long way to go.

There may or may not be grass in Heaven.  If there is, I highly doubt we will need to cut it.   But if we do, it will be with a huge smile on our faces.  Until I reach Heaven, I will be working at having a smile on my face as much as possible.

The Human Dilemma

⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will

Ephesians 1:4-5 (NIV)

These two verses may be the most powerful ones in the entire Bible.  They sum up both the entirety of God’s plan for us and His love for us very nicely.  They clearly state the dilemma God had when deciding whether or not to create mankind.  I just love these verses!

The phrase “before the creation of the world” reflects back to Genesis 1:26 when God is talking to Himself and says "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (NIV).  It was not some rash impulse that God had to create mankind.  There was a lot of thought put into the plan to create us and what that would mean.

In Job 38:4-7, God told Job the angels were around when God created us.  If God already had the angels, He must have desired something different from mankind.  We do not know exactly what an angel’s relationship to God is or how much freedom an angel is given.  However, it seems that once an angel chooses to disobey God, there is no turning back to Him.  There is no account of an angel repenting in the Bible.

With us it is different.  Each of us breaks our relationship with God when we sin.  We then need to turn to Jesus to have those sins forgiven and our relationship with God restored.  After that point, we remain faithful and our relationship with God is secure, even when we do sin again.  That is what is meant when it says that God “predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.”  When we are saved from our sins we are also adopted into God’s family.  This all means that we appear to have more freedom of choice than the angels do.  Creating us with the ability to choose to serve Him meant that some people would choose not to.  Even those who do choose to serve God do not always do what He wants them to do.  According to James 4:17, any time we fail to live up to what God wants of us, it is sin.  What is mind boggling is that before God even created us, He knew we would sin and that He would have to send Jesus to die for those sins to restore our relationship with Him.  As soon as God created us, Jesus was sentenced to death.  Yet, because He loved us so much, even before you, I, or anyone else was created, He was willing to pay that price.

That is why I feel these two verses are so powerful.  They speak of God’s wisdom in understanding the failings mankind would have and being able to devise a plan to overcome them.  They also speak of God’s love for us with Him being willing to send Jesus to die for our failings.  But even more powerfully, they tell us He was willing to create us knowing the full extent of the pain and suffering it would cause Him.  He could have seen the price Jesus would have to pay for creating us and decided He was fine with just having angels around.  God did not need us.  He is complete within Himself.  Yet, He knew that we would benefit greatly from being in relationship with Him so He was willing to pay that price so that we could experience all the good He can offer us.  Praise God for His love for us and His desire for us to experience the blessings which can only come from Him, especially since He had to pay a terrible price for that to be possible! 

Keep in mind that we are only experiencing a part of God while in this life.  We cannot fully appreciate what God has done for us until we reach Heaven and can truly realize what it means to have been adopted into God’s family and the blessings that come with that.

The Past, Present, and Future of the Cross

The power of the cross is timeless; it applies to our past and our present but is primarily focused on our future.

Romans 6:3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We often, and appropriately, think about what Jesus did for us on the cross in the past as He suffered and gave His life for our sins.  This is good to think about since that was such an enormous sacrifice for Him to make for mankind.  Of course the real power comes from what happened three days later when He was able to overcome death to live forever.

⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

We also often talk about the effect Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross has for us in the present.  Because of that sacrifice you and I can have forgiveness of our sins today.  He gives our sinful bodies new life.  Even though that event happened over 2,000 years in the past, the effect is just as powerful in the present as it was then.

⁵ If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

As important as the past and the present of the cross are to us, the real goal of the cross is still in the future.  I am very thankful to be forgiven of my sins today.  Yet, there will come a day when I will be SO much more thankful for that forgiveness.  Just as Jesus was raised to never die again 2,000 years ago, we too will be raised to live eternally with Him after we die.  Luke 11:25 - “[Jesus] is the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in [Jesus] will live even if he dies.”

Yes, we need to remember what Jesus did for us on that great and dreadful day along with the triumph He had over death.  Yet the forgiveness afforded us at the cross is merely foreshadowing for the true gift which is to come.  Today we only enjoy part of the forgiveness that is truly ours.  We still struggle with our sins and still constantly need to be forgiven.  One day we will no longer need to keep being forgiven because we will be with God in Heaven where we can sin no more.  Then and only then will we truly appreciate the gift Jesus gave us on the cross.

It is true that Jesus’ death the cross and His resurrection provide the means for our forgiveness.  Yet it goes far beyond simply being forgiven of our sins today.  The ultimate aim of the cross is for us to be with God forever in Heaven. 

Relationships are Fundamental

The good times of life are even better if there is someone there to share them with: going fishing with your dad, taking walks with your sweetheart, playing games with your kids, or just admiring a beautiful sunset with a friend.  You can do all of these things by yourself but having someone there to share them with adds to the enjoyment of the experience.

We are surrounded by relationships.  We have spouses, children, parents, co-workers, and sometimes we even have relationships with our neighbors.  Have you ever stopped to think how important relationships are to our lives?  Relationships are vital to our very survival.

When you come into the world, you automatically are in one of the most important relationships that exists: a child and his or her mother.  If you are lucky, you also have a father right there as well.  This relationship was designed to affect your entire life.  The sad truth is that occasionally this relationship is broken almost immediately after birth and the child has to be taken from his or her parents because the parents are not in a position to care for the child.  The good thing that comes from this sad situation is the child is usually put up for adoption and is often placed into an adoptive family.

So right out of the gate (so to speak), you are put into an extremely important relationship.  We sometimes mess that up but that does not change the design God put in place or the significance of the parent child relationship.  If humans were like sea turtles and just left their babies to fend for themselves, we would not survive as a species.  A human baby cannot take care of its most basic physical need: to feed itself.  A baby left on its own quickly perishes.  There are very basic emotional needs that are fulfilled from this relationship as well which can be quite detrimental if left unmet.

As children grow, they become less dependent on their parents for their survival and start to depend more on their parents to help them mature and gain the wisdom needed to help them handle life on their own one day.  Even though the parent-child relationship changes, it is still a foundational relationship throughout our lives.

There are of course many other relationships that develop during our lives.  Most of us will get jobs and form relationships with the people we work with to varying degrees of intimacy.  It would be very hard to do almost any job without being involved with other people.  If you work on a team, you must develop relationships with these people to be effective.  You can have a successful business on your own but that is much harder than working with other people.  It is a rare individual who can manage all aspects of a business well.

Mothers who stay home to raise the kids of course have a relationship with their children but to remain sane they also need to have relationships with other grown women.  The more friends a mother has, the happier she is.  Even as crucial as the mother child relationship is, it needs to be supported by other relationships.

If you are fortunate, you will meet a special someone and marry that person.  This relationship has an even higher priority than your relationship with your parents.  If you get married, that relationship is intended to be the primary human relationship for the rest of your lives (and yes this is true even after kids come along).

There are of course many other types of relationships you can have with other people.  The examples given should be enough for you to see how pivotal relationships can be in your life.  All of these relationships have a common thread: they should all be a reflection or an extension of our relationship with God.  Any relationship should have at its core the goal of glorifying God.  That is our purpose for being on the earth.  So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God [1 Cor 10:31 (NET)].  To do that we must have a strong and thriving relationship with God.  The other relationships in our lives will not be healthy if our core relationship with God is not strong and healthy.

Our devotion to God is supposed to burst forth from us to be seen by others.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven [Matt 5:16 (NIV)].  Our love for God should be a beacon to those who do not know Him and are seeking joy and peace in their lives.  This should be most evident to those with whom we have established relationships.

Our relationships with each other are crucial to our relationship with God.  This is especially true of our relationships with other Christians.  We are told: If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother [1 John 4:20-21 (NIV)].  How we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ is a reflection of what we think of God.  The example given in 1 John is an extreme but it is just as true that if we see a brother in need and do nothing to help.  Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead – [James 2:15-17 (NIV)].

We should not take our relationships for granted.  They are part of the system designed by God for our good.  These relationships help us enjoy this life more fully and allow us to help others do the same.  We need to thank God for these relationships and ask Him how we can use them to bring Him glory.  Let’s ask Him to bring us into new relationships for the express purpose of bringing glory to Him.  Many of these relationships will last throughout all eternity.