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.