kingdom travelin'

Looking forward to seeing Him? see and live it NOW, HERE!

In class today I was asked about heaven and hell. I try to keep things boiled down to that which I can be pretty sure sometimes. (There are times where its okay to speculate, as long as one clarifies that they are indeed doing so, and for the sake of delving into deeper understanding). Anyway, I made the comment that one should be careful in relegating a person to the bad place (as well as sending them to the pearly gates) and one of my sharp students asked why. I replied that we only know the heart of one person, us. And that, while we cannot look into the heart of another, we can look at life and words and get the idea of where they are with God… but I added we can’t know, so its best to play it safe… then I said what I’ve said in many funerals, where ever they are, I believe they want you to know the truth. One student pointed out the Jesus told a parable to that effect, and she was right, He did… but then the question of what these people are experiencing came up… and I stumbled into this idea… those in the presence of God have a single focus… God, as they are “face to face” (whatever that means) they are not in the least thinking about anyone or anything but God, for finally, they are engaged in that for which they were created… worship of Him! And for those other folks? I suppose the converse is true… And isn’t that a very similar comparison to now…

here on this planet, in the now, the here, we who are privileged enough to be followers of Him, should have our focus less on us and our stuff and more on Him… because we have a joyous life to live here!!

…Yancey said ‘Some of us seem so anxious about avoiding hell that we forget to celebrate our journey toward heaven. Others of us, rightly concerned about issues in a modern ‘culture war,’ neglect the church’s mission as a haven of grace in this world of ungrace. (What’s so Amazing about Grace? p. 14) and that is so true… this journey we are on is awesome, the blessing we have, this life which I called the second kind of Grace is so incomparably better than the alternative… and serving Him is too!

Looking forward to seeing Him? see and live it NOW, HERE!

Willard states… “We automatically remember what makes a real difference in our life. The secret of the great teacher is to speak words, to foster experiences, that impact the active flow of the hearers’s life.”

… “By showing to others the presence of the kingdom in the concrete details of our shared existence, we impact the lives and hearts of our hearers, not just their heads. And they won’t have to write it down to hold on to it.” (p. 114)

My buddy Mark found the BBC transcript of the broadcast I heard which got me thinking about the Roma and stereotypes…

Also, somehow, a webpage was added as a comment to my post about meaning… I checked it out… it is interesting… I would love to have heard Francis Schaeffer converse with keepers of this website… His book, How Should We then Live? gives some great answers to the propositions on the site…

A friend sent me a link to a website run by Prison Fellowhip. I think the article about Dr. King is worth the time to read…

In chapel as part of my talk yesterday about the meaning of life, I read excerpts from King’s “I Have a Dream” speach. I found this speech powerful. I found a website that has the audio on line and was moved by its power… (I’m not linking ‘cuz the audio was not so good and the feed kept stopping to buffer – if you kow a better site that really works you could give it to us in a comment). My point in chapel was that life does indeed have meaning. So I would ask this of you… what would you answer to a person who asked you what is the meaning of life…??? hmmmmm? perhaps we can see an interesting comment or two…

My friend J.R. tagged me for a little blogging confession: fessin’ up to five guilty pleasures.
The rules: Write about five guilty pleasures. In the end, you need to choose people to be tagged and list their names…

1. making the coffee stronger than most people like it…

2. listening to Liszt Ferenc every day…

3. writing every quotable quote I read in my Palm…

4. blogging…

5. hamburgers from ‘five guys’ and and fried chicken from ‘wayside’…

TAG! you’re it – Mark, Laci and Arden – now it’s your turn for ‘blogging’ confession