A Bigger God ...

Ever had a project at work that was important to you, that you wanted to not only do well, but to do better than anyone, maybe even yourself, thought possible?  Or perhaps you wanted to make Christmas for your child, an event they could not even begin to estimate, something beyond their wildest expectations.  There are times when the efforts we take on, we take on with an internal passion, a drive to make the results something spectacular, something epic.  Our measuring stick is not one imposed on us by other people, or even by convention.  Instead we plan to far exceed anything “normal” convention may have imposed and attempt to pull off something singular.  If we were to do this regularly, it might have the effect of raising the expectations of others that this is “just what we do”.  Doing something spectacular might get lost in the perceptions of others because we do it so often.  But what happens when exceeding expectations is not just a periodic goal we undertake, but a core part of who we are?  Jesus faced this.

But Jesus faced perhaps a bigger dilemma, how to contain the infinite in the limited package of humanity, and effectively teach us who God is, and how much God loves.  The people in the days of Christ had preconceived ideas about who the Messiah was, and what the Messiah was supposed to do.  The most important role the Messiah was supposed to play was that of liberator-in-chief.  The Messiah was supposed to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression and establish Israel as the eternal kingdom, based in Jerusalem forever more.  This goal pleased the hearts of the people.  It had a very direct and personal impact on all of them.  No more taxes.  No more unjust torture and crucifixion.  No more influence of pagan gods, and idols strewn throughout the land.  Getting rid of the Romans would help “purify” the Temple, and allow the people to lead better lives, where they were independent, and in need of nothing.  This view was scripturally based.  It was in error, but it originated from reading and interpreting their existing Bible, the same one we use today.  They had simply misread the texts having to do with the “second” coming of Christ, with those having to do with the “first” coming.  Because this interpretation was pleasing to them, they stuck with it, ignoring all the other texts that seemed to be in conflict with it.  Are we any different today?

So Jesus had a compounded problem.  He would NOT be filling the role of conqueror at this time, and establishing His final kingdom forever and ever.  In this, the people were going to be inclined to completely reject Him as the Messiah, indeed the religious leadership already had.  But Jesus was going to show us the role of Physician-in-Chief.  There was not a single malady, a single illness or condition, that Christ would not heal and restore to perfection.  Even death was not an obstacle to Christ where it came to restoring us and removing our pain.  But our God is bigger than just the ultimate doctor who knows our bodies and minds better than anyone who ever lived.  Jesus would also take on the role of Teacher-in-Chief.  In this Jesus would teach the scriptures as they were meant to be taught, in perfection, with clarity and authority, as it was He who had inspired them in the first place.  Then there was the challenge of revealing to us the love of the Father, of revealing to us His motives, and His love.  Living a life of perfect love for others, never once prioritizing love for self in any way, in fact, He seemed totally devoid of it.  This contrast between sin (the love of self), and perfection (the love of others), was so deep, our diseased souls could hardly grasp it.

Jesus would not be doing what the people expected, and they were sure to be disappointed.  But He would be doing so much else, exceeding so many expectations, that trying to “understand” who He was, was sure to be tough.  Then the tougher conundrum; Jesus was our Messiah, but He was also God, a much bigger God than man could ever understand.  Jesus was our Creator.  That was a role, that would boggle the minds of the people in His own day, and now in ours.  The Bible begins with Moses attempting to quantify in human words, our origin founded in the act of Creation performed by Christ.  In seven days, Moses takes us from the abyss, to a fully formed planet teeming with life, including the first man fashioned in the image of God.  None of the people in the days of Jesus had any notion of the Messiah being the Creator.  They had lost sight of that.  They forgot that the original promise was made in the garden of Eden to Adam and Eve.  It was “that God” who was coming to save them.  It was “that Creator” who was destined to finally put Satan out of his place in this world.  This role was not one the people would expect or understand.

At some point our minds just cannot absorb any more.  It would take faith to believe in a virgin birth, in the ability for our God to be big enough to create Himself in the womb of Mary without the aid of man.  It would take faith to believe that our God could be both man and God at one time.  It would take further faith to accept that our God was big enough to heal anything wrong with us, including our desire to sin.  It would take further faith to accept He was going to be killed, and then be resurrected as our Savior.  In the days of Christ, having just this much faith and understanding was enough to contend with it.  Adding to that, the rest of who Jesus is, our Creator, and an Infinite God was simply too much for the people of His day.  So frequently, Jesus revealed this part of Himself, but asked those who saw it, to keep it secret, and keep it to themselves.  The last thing He needed, was a distracting debate about the power and role of our Creator in the guise of the Messiah.

Peter recalls some of this dilemma to John Mark in his gospel in chapter eight.  Peter further sets an interesting context.  Jesus has just rebuked the Pharisees who wanted a display of His power, before they would believe.  Christ had told them there would be no sign given, but in the very next verses we see here, yet another miracle is performed.  Perhaps this miracle illustrates a union of the roles Jesus had within Him.  Mark chronicles the events picking up in verse 22 saying … “And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. [verse 23] And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.”  Having Jesus perform a miracle to heal someone was common place by now, the spectacular had become normal.  So why was this healing called out by Peter as worthy to be in the gospels?  What was it so special here?  Perhaps the first clue is in the sequence of events, the first thing Jesus does is lead this blind man by the hand until they are out of town (away from the people).

The healing for this man is somewhat unique in that Jesus is looking to do it away from the crowds.  This will be a personal interaction between our Creator and the created.  The second clue is that in the mechanics of healing this man, He does not simply speak the words, or drag His garments over the man.  He takes the very personal action of putting spit into the eyes of this man.  I believe the difference between this blind man, and perhaps others He opened the eyes of (and there were many); is that this man perhaps had no eyes to start with.  Either from birth defect, or accident, or Roman torture, I believe this man’s eyes had been removed.  So Jesus takes him completely away from everyone, and only then puts spit into his eyes and asks if he can see yet.  The man replies in verse 24 saying … “And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. [verse 25] After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.”  Complete healing does not come at once in this case.  It took 2 actions.  I believe the first was restoring or re-creating eyes that had been lost or removed.  The second action by Christ was fine-tuning the vision and nerves to give him 20:20 sight.  The role Jesus was playing here was bigger than Messiah, bigger than Doctor, or Teacher, or Revealer of the Father.  Jesus was enacting His role as our Creator, fulfilling a promise given directly to Adam and Eve way back in the garden.  What happened next was a further clue in this regard.

John Mark continues in verse 26 saying … “And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.”  Jesus wanted this re-creation kept completely secret by the man.  In fact, by the next few verses it would seem Jesus left the city and the area immediately following this event.  The Pharisees had demanded a sign of Jesus as if He was some circus performer doing tricks for the crowd for the compensation of acceptance.  But Jesus was our Creator, who had given His promise to Adam and Eve in a very personal way all the way back in the garden.  He was here not performing tricks, but doing the work of creation, making something out of nothing once again.  Not all of His healings required privacy and secrecy, but some did.  Jesus may not have asked His followers in His day to accept Him in the role of Creator as well as that of Messiah, but it did not prevent Him from being both of those things.  Our God is far bigger than how we like to picture Him.  To be God, is to be something the created will perhaps never fully comprehend, as only the Creator has that knowledge.

In our day, many Christians have come to accept that perhaps our world was never “created” at all, let alone within seven days.  They believe that science is at odds with the notion of a fully functioning, fully aged universe that comes into being in 7 days, by a power that is infinite.  Instead, they substitute trillions of years or “time” to replace what Moses said our God did in a week.  Time allows natural evolution to occur that follows a big bang that no scientist can fully explain the origins of either.  While single cells of a living organism can divide and grow into virtually anything, the combination of periodic elements generated from a big bang has yet to produce even one of them.  If we have life, we can reproduce life, but getting life in the first place seems to be elusive.  Then comes our aging cycle, or “why we die” is another mystery outside of a Biblical explanation, for if life could evolve, why should it decay at all?  But no matter the questions or information we do not know; it all boils down to a decision one makes about what to believe.  When Christians discard the role of Jesus as our Creator, they discard the original promise He made in the garden to Adam and Eve.  By denying God the ability to create, we deny Him the ability to re-create, or restore His creation.  Once we embark on denying how big our God is, we eventually make Him no more than equal with ourselves, in fact elevating ourselves to be God.

I believe Peter included this story to show us that Jesus was more than just Messiah; that our God is bigger than the capacity of our mind’s limitations.  I believe stories like this one were in effect, a nod to Adam and Eve that the promise made to them was kept by the Creator who made it.  Because we have such a hard time wrapping our minds around these ideas, says more about us, than it does about our God.  No matter how great we think our God is; He is bigger than that …

 

City Life ...

City slicker, or country bumpkin; do you prefer either, both, something else entirely?  There are those of us who truly appreciate large cities.  They just seem to speak to us.  A city like New York, or Los Angeles, or Washington D.C. just seems to exude a rhythm, a work ethic, a unique sense of relaxation or stress.  Maybe it is the people that live in them, but as the population tends to come from all over the world, this would appear to make less sense.  Maybe it is the geography or the climate, but then not all northern or southern cities “feel” the same.  Maybe it is the architecture of the buildings, but this would make more sense internationally than within our nation.  There is just something about a city where it seems to illicit in us both positive and negative reactions.  Country living on the other hand seems to have a much more common theme – wide open expanse.  Whether it is on a wheat farm in Nebraska, a mountainside in Oregon, an old plantation farm in deep south, or a country home in Maine – the common theme they share is an appreciation for the beauty of nature, a preference to leave it as “untouched” as possible, and the ability to “move around” without bumping in to a constant stream of people.  It is interesting then to consider that our eternal destiny is to be both city-dweller, and country-dweller for all time.

The God of the universe, our God of life and love, tends to reside on a throne.  From what we can gather in scripture, His throne is at the highest pinnacle of a city, a city we call Heaven.  It was from this city that Lucifer who became Satan was cast out.  Satan and his followers were barred from re-entry other than by invitation (as when the conversation over Job occurred).  And it is at the end of evil that Satan will try in futility once more to take the city with his army of evil angels, and resurrected evil men and women.  Apparently, even beyond what we understand about cities, the city of heaven is something that perfect love will defend, and absolute evil covets for its own.  It is in this very city that Jesus Himself promises to build us a home, that we might return to be with Him forever.  It is in the book of Revelations where the Apostle and prophet John describes what He can see of the city of heaven, it’s basic dimensions and some of its characteristics, such as having twelve gates whose doors are made of solid pearl, 12 foundations of various precious stones, and streets made of gold.  God however, is always described as being located at the city center, and at the highest point.  Christ is usually found at God the Father’s right hand.  If these locations predate our existence, and are talked about in scripture as being the condition to which we will return.  It would seem then, that city life, or rather perfect city life, is something we are destined to share.

The question then is what makes a city?  Why does scripture describe the location of God the Father as being in a city?  I think the answer may be found in examining as we described earlier the only common element to country-living, wide open spaces.  Cities tend to be “full” of people, or in this case, intelligent beings.  The angels occupy heaven.  Ever thought about why?  There is at least one incredibly expansive universe which God has created.  It contains galaxies which are huge each holding stars/suns beyond measure, that could each have planetary systems with possibly many planets.  In terms of where a person or angel might be found, it makes for an infinite game of hide-and-seek.  So why hang out in the city of heaven, if literally every single other place in the universe is available for touring, or residence?  Do you think angels perhaps like us, require companionship in order to be truly happy?  Begs the question, how can one serve, if one is alone?  Or is it perhaps that all life just tends to gravitate towards being close to God?

Perhaps gravity is more than dropping an apple from a tree, perhaps it is being inexplicably drawn to the source of all life and love.  It would seem logical then that to comfortably accommodate all the angels and life forms (soon to be us) that wish to be near God, a “city” would emerge.  Proximity to God is a measure of “value” that perfect beings aspire to attain.  Lucifer used to occupy the third-highest position in the kingdom of heaven before his fall.  While Christ was on the right hand of the Father, Lucifer at that time the archangel (or leader of the angelic hosts) was on the left.  Until he chose to break trust with God and explore self, he did not realize that Christ was closer to God than himself.  In a government where the highest leader is also the highest servant of all, it is hard to distinguish differences in “rank”.  In the perfection of heaven, expressing unselfish love is the highest ambition any life form can achieve.  Indeed the entire un-fallen angelic host lives to serve our God in any way they can.  It remains their highest ambition, and is perhaps the greatest reason they choose to remain as close to God as they are able to do (i.e. city life), rather than explore regions of the universe at the far ends of space.  Angels it would seem, go where they are needed, but highly prefer the company and proximity of God.

Another point of interest emerges when considering our destiny towards city-life; cities may sprawl outwards, but they tend to rise upwards just as often.  The “skyline” of a city reflects a number of buildings that rise upwards towards the sky, often found in groups right next to each other.  In order to accommodate large numbers of people, residents of a city often have “homes” located on different floors of the towers that rise near the center of a city.  It would seem logical then, that to house the hopefully vast numbers of humans that accept the gift of freedom from evil in our new and perfect location, we might find the homes our Lord has created for us in structures that rise upwards, not just sprawl outwards.  In point of fact, John identifies that the heavenly city is as tall as it is wide and long.  And no, I do not imagine a Borg-Cube when I think about heaven, but I might imagine more of a city whose skyline looks more like the pyramids of Egypt.  The throne building being the center piece and rising to a higher point than any other structure, but having many tall structures around it that may rise to various heights, getting perhaps a bit shorter as they sprawl outwards to the walls of the city.  Regardless of how the height is architected, it is certain that height is a part of the equation.  And it would seem logical that height is meant to provide us with the “homes” our Lord is making.

As for opulence and beauty, I can think of no better architect than our Lord and creator.  It was He after all who created the elements like gold and pearl in the first place.  I would imagine that a penthouse home architected by Jesus Himself would be personalized for each child He redeemed, with elements that just that person would love and appreciate.  I doubt any two homes would be exactly alike.  And I would expect perhaps that my home, and the home of my wife, might be an adjoining apartment with nothing but a set of double doors separating the two (if that).  The weird thing for me to consider is the modified use of my two normally favorite rooms (the bedroom and the bathroom).  Toilets will be no more so that will be huge change for me.  I guess it also leaves more room for the bathtub.  But then too, will I still need a sink?  Won’t need makeup, not sure if I still need to brush my teeth or shave.  Will I still need to comb my hair, or will it just shake out dry as I need it to?  Perhaps there will be no need of sinks either.  Even the bathtub may be more a device of recreation than necessity.  Do you think we will even get “dirty” in heaven.  We won’t smell, so how does one define “dirty” anyway?

The bedroom too (in my new city apartment) may be a bit of an unused room.  In the city, there is no need of a sun, as God’s very presence makes it bright as noon-day perpetually.  In this situation I imagine we will be eternally energized just from being near Him.  We won’t need sleep in the city, and therefore a bedroom might be a bit superfluous.  How do I nap after all if I just can’t get tired; too excited, too happy, too energized.  Why would I even want to attempt a nap under those conditions?  Would I even want to lay down?  Which begs the question, how much use would I even have for this penthouse home?  I will not have an extensive wardrobe that requires a place for storage.  My clothing or coverings will be made of light (adjusted to the colors and shapes I can envision at will), so closets seem unneeded.  I won’t have medicines, make-up, or toiletries so cabinet space in the bathroom may not be needed.  It could be that the newly-highest-used-rooms in my home may be the kitchen, and dining room.  That one I could really get in to, perfect ingredients to serve perfect meals to my perfect family and friends.  Perhaps the new best function of our heavenly homes will merely be a place for us to talk with each other, eat with each other, and hang out with each other.  Certainly a bit different perspective than what we think of today in our homes.  Today our homes are a refuge from society, in heaven they may be a focal point of it.

I might liken our homes in heaven, to a hotel room in Las Vegas.  A place with a beautiful view, and perhaps all the essentials we might need; but everything in Las Vegas is designed to keep you out of your room as much as possible.  In Vegas these intention may be less than noble, but in heaven the concept may be similar with the extreme exception that everything in heaven will be designed with perfect intentions, motives, and actions.  Still we may be so busy, or so excited, or just so interested in the people and activities around us, that spending a great deal of time “in our homes” may not enter our thoughts that much.  Our homes may make Donald Trump’s apartment in New York look like a slum, but the things we value in heaven are much more the people, than the stuff.  After all, gold is nothing more than concrete in the city we are destined to have a home forever within.  It may be beautiful concrete, but concrete is concrete none-the-less.

One might deduce from the emphasis scripture places on the heavenly city, that our future destiny includes only a city life.  It does not.  To realize this, one need only look back to our Genesis, both Adam and Eve were given a garden home, not a city high rise apartment.  God’s idea of country-living was a particularly perfect garden in an otherwise perfect world.  When after Lucifer, man broke trust with God and embraced self and evil, he was “driven” from the perfection of his garden home.  There was a distinction between Eden, and it surroundings.  The whole of planet earth was not considered Eden, only the area where God had planted it.  A gate marked the entry point for Eden, and until the flood, it was guarded by an angel with a flaming sword.  It is believed that just before the flood, God took the garden to heaven to preserve it, perhaps make it the “central park” of heaven, perhaps return it to Adam and Eve once evil had been ended once and for all.  It is speculation.  But where God chose to make man’s first home is not speculation.  It was decidedly country living not city.

It may be that heaven requires a city in order to accommodate all of the residents who wish to be close to God.  But the re-creation of our world after evil, after hell, and after death itself is finally consumed (as described in Revelations), is the re-creation of our entire world.  Our world will be “made new”.  We are not destined to live in a city surrounded by the destruction and remnants of a world steeped in sin at the time of our Lord’s second return.  Nor are we destined to live in a city, now transplanted to Jerusalem’s earthly locale, only to be surrounded by the death and tortured torments of the wicked burning forever just beyond our gates.  No, the world’s destruction remnants from the time of Christ’s return will be completely consumed in the hail of fire, and lava that consumes Satan, evil, and all who refuse the freedom from self that our God offers.  Our world will burn, and evil will be consumed in the flames, as will pain and death.  They will be removed forever.  They will cease to exist forever.  In that sense, the finality of God’s judgment will be eternal.  But they will also be removed from our sight, and our memories forever.  We will not go through the eons of time, lamenting our role in the evil we embraced, nor missing those who refused the embrace of love our God had offered them all.  All of that past will sleep the sleep of non-existence.  Our tears must be wiped from our eyes.  And for those who refused His mercy, the finality of His judgments are all that can be left to them.  But John is specific in his writings that our world will be made new again.  Heaven’s location may be fixed at Jerusalem’s old locale, but the rest of the planet will be getting an extreme makeover.

It is out into this newly created world that we will also go to make our own homes.  In this, we will have both a city home, and a country home.  Located away from the city of heaven, and thus a bit farther away from the direct presence of God, the cycle of night and day will once again become relevant.  The sun will rule our day, and the moon our night, as it once was in the garden home our Lord first created.  It is there where a bedroom may finally be needed again.  It is there where the relevance of Sabbath will re-emerge.  For the Lord Himself marked the Sabbath by measuring the time of days with the rising and setting of the sun.  And the prophet Isaiah discusses the idea of Sabbath and … “from one new moon to another” in his forecasts of heaven.  These ideas of timing around the rising and setting of the sun can only be relevant away from the city center, where the presence of God outshines the sun.  It stands to reason then, based on God’s original designs, and his indications of his eternal intentions, that we will live, or have homes, in more than one place.  We will be both city-dweller and country-dweller. 

Though no matter where we hang our crowns so to speak, how we live and what we value, will have transcended from a focus on self, to a focus on others.  Whether we entertain guests in our city or our country homes, the precious company of a guest, will be the prized commodity.  It will not be our beautiful hand crafted furniture, or pride in our architectural and engineering achievements we wish to discuss, but the testimony of a life spared by love.  We will never grow tired of hearing how God redeemed you, how He freed you, and what He is doing with you and for you even right now.  Those stories will not be merely past tense, but present and future as well.  God will ever be interacting with us all.  He will be among us, with us, able to see us face to face without fear or shame on our part.  We will know Him, really know Him.  Imagine the honor, of offering our Lord a home cooked meal for His enjoyment.  It will not be the design or finery of the china that will be our first concern, only that He is coming to see us today.  It will not be comparisons of how our home exceeds that of our neighbors, in heaven, were that true, we would gladly give our home to our neighbors just to see them happy.  No, in heaven, to be with God is the reward.  To hold companionship with those who are precious to us, literally every living soul, is our reward.

Our homes in heaven are nothing more than a place to hold events, a place to serve, a place to gather, a place to recount the infinite mercy and love of our God.  There will be no homeless in heaven.  There will be no poor.  But how we measure wealth will have radically changed.  How we measure the value of the company of another will have radically changed.  A home in heaven can only be understood in this context.  Our thinking will change, starting here and now, as we surrender to Christ, and allow Him to re-create us anew from the inside out.  Heaven will be the culmination of that work, not its beginning.  Heaven will be the place where the work of re-creation within us can be fully appreciated.  It is only when our thinking has been made new, our desires have been made new, and our values systems completely made new, that we can finally begin to appreciate what our homes might be like, and what is truly important within them.  A change in how we think, a change in how we love, this is the beginning of freedom from self that our God offers us freely.  It is the beginning of wisdom, and why when we reach heaven, our definition of “living” will be something completely different than it is today, no matter the locale of our homes in perfection.

Ageless ...

 “Respect your elders.”  This societal mantra (also believed to be supported in Leviticus 19:32) is something older folks tend to try to drill into younger folks, reasoning that older folks have earned it.  Scripture tells us to “honor our father and mother” (Exodus 20:12), but it also says “a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6) and “unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 18:2-4).  One of Israel’s greatest prophets Samuel began his ministry at the age of seven, and continued it until his death when he was described as being “very old”.  Age, it would seem, carries with it various societal and spiritual implications.  But how do I respect my elders when I cannot determine who they are?  And how do I become like a little child, if everyone around me looks just like I do?  What impact will age have, in a destiny, where age and all the signs we associate with it, become irrelevant?  After all, our destiny it to be ageless …

Our embrace of evil has brought with it the greatest of all inhibitors to the state which God created us for; evil has brought with it a termination to our life span.  It was not God’s design that we should get old and die.  In the Garden of Eden, God created for us the tree of life.  This very real tree provided fruit which served not only for every need our bodies would have to convert food into energy (with zero waste byproducts), but also as a symbol to point out that all life originates with God.  It was in fact God’s original design that our life span would indeed be ageless.  It was only after our embrace of evil, that our condition (i.e. physical, mental, moral, and spiritual) would be degenerative and require a point of termination.  Had Eve remained with Adam, or had Adam trusted God enough to save Eve after her fall, we might never have known the knowledge of age and death.  Both Adam and Eve were created into perfection, which included the “perfect” age or level of maturity we would measure them by.  The right height, weight, and appearance – marks by which we measure age – would have all been consistent with the standards of perfection that God setup.  In point of fact, we do not know how long they lived in Eden before the fall (though we assume it was relatively “brief”).  But they could have been there for 10 days or 10 decades and their appearances would have been unaltered by time. 

The process of the growth from birth to maturity however was something that preceded evil.  Even before our species fell into evil, God’s command to everything He had created including us was to “be fruitful and multiply”.  Procreation was therefore a cycle of life that God had built into every creation of life He made, and it was an expectation it would continue.  Babies would be born, and grow to the perfect level of maturity, but that is as far as aging would ever be relevant.  This includes baby birds, baby fish, baby mammals, but it would also have included the process of germination for plant life as well.  Anything that could procreate was directed to procreate.  And once again scripture does not point out a cap on this process.  God does not say, go out and have exactly one child, or one baby bird, or plant one more tree.  It appears His intent was for His creations to fill our world.  But this brings up an interesting point, why not simply do it Himself?  He could have created the perfect number of fish to fill all the lakes and streams and bodies of water so that procreation was not necessary.  He could have filled the skies with the right number of birds, and planted the right amount of foliage to populate our planet from end to end.  Even with man, He could have made several couples, or perhaps an entire nation at once.  But He did not.  Instead it appears, He “seeded” our world with His creation, and within the design of His creation, by intent, He made procreation a part of our process. 

Had Adam and Eve never sinned or broken trust with God, they too would have procreated with Cain, Abel, and Seth having been born into our perfect world in the perfect process of procreation.  In fact it is only identified after we broke trust with God that “pain” would be a part of the procreation process.  Had we never sinned, the process of birth would have been completely devoid of pain.  It might even have been one of pleasure (you know like the one at conception).  Regardless, scripture does not tell us that Adam and Eve were meant to only make 3 sons, or that they stopped with only 3.  Logic dictates that they were giving birth to daughters as well, and probably had a significant number of children after Seth and before the effects of aging finally set in.  Both our original parents lived well into their 900’s after all.  Scripture further places no pre-conceived ideas about when (if ever) procreation should have stopped.  Using our human logic, we would naturally assume the goal was populate only our world.  But then that is based merely on human limitations.  Just to look into the sky at night, is to see with the naked eyes, stars beyond counting.  Each star could have a system of planets associated with it, much like our own.  In the perfection of heaven, it is possible each couple united in marriage could travel to a distant world and begin populating it all over again.  Just to fill up the ones in this galaxy might take us “forever”.  Adding to that number, how long it would take to fill up another galaxy or another, or perhaps even an entirely parallel universe, etc.;  the point is simply that without constraining growth to human limitations, the process of procreation could be as infinite as the years we were intended to live.

It would appear then, that a return to the state of perfection we were intended to be, would be a return for each of us to the “perfect” age, and uniquely personal “perfect” appearance each of us was designed for.  Children might still be born, and age to “maturity”, but upon reaching maturity they become ageless.  In that perfect state of maturity, the ability to distinguish between mother and daughter and sister and wife and friend becomes impossible based on appearances.  Perhaps then, honoring my mother, is not just about recognizing a woman who appears older than me, but about how I treat the woman who gave birth to me.  Perhaps it does not matter how old my mother is, in terms of how I honor her and show her love in the world that is to come.  Her age will impact her in this world of pain, and so while here I may tailor how I show my love to her to account for the impacts of aging.  In heaven, however, and for the eternity of time we will spend together, honoring her will take a bit different approach.  Loving and honoring her in a unique way will set her apart as my mother.  From our appearances (other than perhaps family resemblance) you could not tell if she were my mother, or my daughter, or my sister.  Perhaps this was one of the intentions of God in the first place, that the distinctions we use today on how we love each other might give way to broader concepts of what family is, in the perfect destiny of heaven.

Indeed it might be very difficult to distinguish who is my mother, sister, daughter, relative or friend in the perfection that is heaven.  The only real way to know might be how we treat each other.  But then, in the perfection of heaven, even that might make the differences indistinguishable.  Love after all, and service to others, is the guiding principle of the government of heaven and character of God.  Expressions of love to others would be constant, intense, and passionate in the perfection of heaven, making the relationships between one person and another hard to discern by sight alone.  Perhaps this was by intent.  Perhaps this is what God had in mind for us all along.  Perhaps this is what it means to be part of the “family” of God, that our actual blood lines make nearly no difference at all, in who we call family and in how we treat them.  In the perfection of heaven, my own daughters and son, will be loved by you as much as they are loved by me.  In point of fact, you would do anything you could to bring joy to them, as I would do for your children.  In this sense, our families are immediately blended, without hesitation, regret, or fear.  You holding my child is as natural as me holding yours.  There are no fears that are tied to evil intentions, motives, or actions as in the perfection of heaven these cease to exist.  Through the process of recreation we are made into something new, not only absent sin and evil and slavery to self, but someone who is able to love without ceasing or distinction.

Only one relationship may remain distinct in the perfection of heaven, and that may be husband and wife.  Again like here on earth, the only way to discern this relationship from others, is based on how we behave, and how we treat each other.  A ring does not make one married; fidelity does, love does, commitment does, sacrifice does, trust does, honest and open communication does.  In heaven, if it is the wish of our Lord for us to continue His designs of procreation and family units as He originally setup in the garden of Eden, I expect each of us might find ourselves in a perfect pairing.  I do not think our Lord would separate a couple like Adam and Eve in the perfection of heaven, because subsequent generations steeped in the selfishness of evil have made a mess and a mockery of the concept of marriage.  It would not be fair to part Adam from Eve, because we have made commitments to more than one spouse over the course of our selfish lives.  Nor would I expect, that Eve was supposed to be the perfect mate for anyone other than Adam, and he for her.  That marriage was created in perfection, and I would expect it would continue in the perfection that is to come.  No doubt there will be a lot of work from our God, in cleaning up the messes we have made of relationships and marriages in our world of sin.  But that does make this work impossible to complete, and perfectly accepted by us when it is.  To be willing to give even our desires, our romances, and our commitments to God is a key part of the process of re-creation, and allows God to do with us as He originally intended, not be constrained with what we have messed up.

To be ageless then is to lose the physical distinctions that set us apart, and to see each other regardless of our bloodlines as equal, and as equal opportunities to love.  Our families are destined to be so much larger than we see them today, not simply because in heaven I may be introducing myself to my mother’s - mother’s - mother’s - mother for more generations than I am currently able to count (back to Eve); but because more than just by bloodline, you will be my family by my choice and by your own.  My children will be as your children, and your children will be as my own.  I will wish to honor, not only my own mother, but yours as well.  How we treat each other in the perfection of heaven, in the perfection of love expressed, should work its way into our thinking about how we see each other in this world as well. 

Today, in the strength of our own humanity, we can accomplish none of this.  It is in that sense beyond idealistic.  But our limiter was never intended to be “human” strength and perspective.  We are destined to be measured by His power, by His perspectives; and we can accomplish these things by letting Christ change us from the inside out.  We can learn to reflect His love through us, instead of trying to originate love within us on our own.  We can learn to see each other through His eyes, instead of trying to mimic what He did on our own.  The secret to achieving the perfection of heaven in the here and now is not about what we conquer in ourselves, it is about what we surrender to Christ of ourselves.  Increased surrender of who we are, until we have given it all, will lead us to what He is able to do in us, and no longer will be constrained by “human” weakness.  Indeed His love reflected through us will become limitless as it becomes ageless…

Roadmap to Infinity ...

Freedom is more than the physical removal of restrictions.  It is more than our ability to assert our preferences in political elections and policies.  And perhaps most importantly, freedom is more than simply the removal of evil from within us.  The freedom only Christ can bring as we surrender our will to Him; that freedom is limitless.  As we are unshackled from our slavery to self we are concurrently unshackled from the limitations we imposed upon ourselves and our existence.  The apostle James (1:5) tells us … “if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God …”.  To think that even our ability to reason itself is able to increase, by a mere request and faith in our liberating God, is beyond our wildest aspirations.  The limitations of IQ it seems can be broken as well.  The limitations of a poor education can be overcome regardless of age or even genetics, once we start to realize that ALL our shackles are a thing of the past through Christ.  When we start to realize that our current and future existence was destined to be boundless, we can start to live life in this way.  Not because we are inherently god-like when self-realization occurs, but rather because when we fully surrender ourselves we are able to fully reflect our God through us.  It is His power reflected through us, and as nothing is able to limit our God, our existence can be measured against His abilities and not our own.

An infinite life expectancy is not just measured by endless years of time; it is also defined by limitless pursuits of love.  The gifts of love that God bestows upon us never seem to have an off-switch.  When James exhorts us to ask for wisdom from God, he does not specify we should only ask once, or twice, or limit our requests to some predefined number.  Instead he states an obvious truth, when we feel our need, we should ask.  Perhaps the greatest reason our IQ’s do not exceed the Einstein’s or DaVinci’s of history is that we think ourselves “wise enough”.  We are “wise enough” to get to our jobs, manage our families, maintain our friendships, and absorb the lessons from school or church.  Sure we might feel a periodic pressure from an upcoming test we need help with, or project due in our employment; but in general we think ourselves capable enough to meet most of life’s challenges, therefore not especially in “need” of God’s wisdom.  This thinking is borne of the disease of evil.  Since we are less able to deduce how much better our lives could be, we are more content to remain where we are, than to pursue what might otherwise be limitless.  Evil has made mediocrity our norm, and has tempered expectations to the statistical bell curve of humanity.  But this was not, and is not, our destiny.  We are free to seek the wisdom of God on our knees, and in our prayers, as often as we wish.  Since when is “wise enough” a standard by which we measure infinity?  Perhaps growing wiser in the wisdom of God is something we will never grow tired of experiencing, and as James exhorts, it begins now.

A never-ending increase in wisdom leads to a never-ending understanding of truth.  There is more buried in the words of scripture than a cursory reading will reveal.  But this deeper truth was not meant to be withheld from us, it was meant to be discovered.  It is simply that we have tried to ascertain it in the limited wisdom we allow ourselves.  When we realize that no matter how smart we think ourselves today, an offer from God to increase our wisdom is ever on the table, all we need do is ask for it and believe and know He answers our requests.  In effect, we are only taking God up on His offers that exist already.  And a deeper understanding of truth is something He longs to provide us with.  He longs to share things of deeper meaning with us, particularly those of a spiritual nature.  But He has been confined to work with our limited ability to understand – mostly because we refuse to ask to increase our own understanding.  It is the mental equivalent of trying to run a race only using one leg.  We may think we are doing great hopping along on one foot in our race, but the simple use of the other leg would add a whole new dimension to speed, than hopping could ever hope to produce.  A more accurate self-assessment, is that we are never done “needing” what God longs to provide.  And no matter our lack of ability to perceive it, our “need” is truly severe and immediate.

Where wisdom is concerned it may not be God’s intent to make each of us quantum physicists; but is worth noting that subjects of that nature are child’s play for the God who invented the rules and equations that define them.   However wisdom that produces fruit is always something God longs to share.  For example, we think our marriages “good enough” when we can get through the day without fighting like cats and dogs (over money or in-laws), killing the children (so to speak), and still being able to maintain a quasi-squishy lovey-dovey feeling for our spouse.   That’s life right?  But an increase of wisdom that yields a new set of ideas and creativity that would bring something new and special to the life of our spouse; or a new approach in teaching our children with an effect so as to yield positive results that will endure for the length of their lives; these aspirations are possible when the limits of our minds have been eliminated.  In short a marriage that relies on human wisdom and human strength, carries with it inherent human limitations.  But what happens when boundless is the rule of the day?  What happens to the quality of a marriage that does not rely on human limitations but on the infinite potential of God?  The result is a level of love that makes a quasi-squishy feeling look like the puppy love of a teenager.  Instead comes a deep and abiding love that cannot be moved, or perhaps even tempted.  When human limitations give way to infinite potential founded and rooted in God, there is no limit to what the love in our families can become.

We must allow God to unlock our minds to what is really possible with Him.  In this way we can begin to see past the self-imposed boundaries that evil has come to suggest are our limits.  Heaven is not about the golden concrete, it is about the infinite potential.  And the Kingdom of God, has not been withheld from us for a future date, as our Lord Himself has said … “it has come”.  The infinite potential of our destiny is not something we must wait to experience.  It is something on our roadmap that begins in the here and now and sees tangible results in our day-to-day experiences.  When we let go of our mediocre expectations and begin to realize the infinite in our current reality, we realize better just what God has in mind for each of us.  This begins when we allow God to change “how” we think.  The disease of evil acts as an impairment to what God intended us to be.  It acts as an inhibitor to His divine destiny for each of us.  This is why the full elimination of evil from within us should be our first and foremost concern.  This is why no evil must remain a part of us, no cherished sin worth holding on to.  When evil is fully gone from us, we will be able to fully realize what God has in mind for us.  To accept our existence with evil as a part of who we are, is to accept a constrained life unable to reach the potential of the infinite.  Only a full surrender of everything that we are to Christ, can result in unlocking our minds through His daily re-creation of who we are from the inside out.

It is interesting the things that God values from an infinite point of view.  Wealth for example, is a relatively hollow pursuit with little tangible value, particularly from God’s point of view.  How could God even measure wealth in terms we utilize?  How much gold is enough for God, or diamonds perfectly cut, or in silver coins stacked how high?  The city of heaven was described in brilliant beautiful terminology and yet Christ forsook it all, in favor of redeeming us, His children, from the evil we had embraced.  Apparently from the point of view of God, trinkets and minerals matter very little when measured against the infinite potential of even one of His living creations.  Scripture does not condemn earthly wealth, but it does see it as more of a “burden” than a blessing.  This is because how we value wealth distracts us from what is truly of value, each other.  Too often we are consumed with the acquisition of wealth, in order to bring a life of ease and comfort, and thereby we insulate ourselves from what is truly of value.  Even if our collection of trinkets was infinite, what would they truly be worth?  Compare planet sized collections of pure golden coins, with a spouse who spends every day determining and acting out new ways to enrich your life, and demonstrate to you the love that is ever growing within them for you.  Planets of gold guarded in isolation afraid to lose what has been amassed, or a simple love that is ever growing and constantly demonstrated – no contest.  God could have simply made entire empty universes of golden planets if He valued that mineral as much as we seem to.  He did not.  Gold is not what God thinks is limitless, but people are.  We are.  And our God is constantly thinking and inventing new ways to reach us and show us exactly how much He loves us.  This action of showing us love is what brings fulfillment and joy to Him. 

Our gratitude is important to Him, but our acceptance of His gifts means even more.  God longs to give us His wisdom.  He longs to increase our ability to reason so that we might better understand Him and what is truly important in our existence.  He longs to take away our sins and addiction to self and evil, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us and hates to see us bound to suffering and death.  God longs to pour our His Holy Spirit into our lives and with it the endowment of spiritual gifts.  These are things God sees as infinite.  An infinite love is something God wishes to share with us, unbound by our self-inflicted limitations and addiction to evil.  Accepting these gifts from God brings HIM pure joy, as He knows what it will do to our lives.  He finds joy when we find joy.  He finds love in us, when we allow Him to place it there.   He is able to better talk with us, when we allow Him to do so.  He longs to remove the restrictions from us that self-obsession has imposed.  We just need to let Him.  Our need of Him is so much greater than we perceive.  Our need of Him is extreme and immediate, but masked by our affliction of evil.  Satan seeks to distract us from our need of God, so that our infinite potential in Him is never realized.  Satan easily defeats humanity, but is powerless in the face of divinity.  When we allow God to re-create us, it is God who inhabits us, and He who Satan sees when he attempts to confront us.  Only then do we resist him, and find him fleeing from the God he sees reflected in us.  It is not we who Satan fears; it is our God we allow within us.

A better perspective is demanded by those who would seek to reach the infinite.  What is valued throughout eternity should be what we place value upon in the here and now.  Those things which are neither constrained by evil, nor limited in eternity, are the things with which we should seek to spend more of our energy on.  In short, it is people we will be joined with throughout the eons of time.  This is why relieving the plight of their suffering in a world of sin, takes so much a priority within the scriptures.  The reason why the widow, and fatherless, the poor, the afflicted, the naked, those in prison take such a prominent place in the admonitions of scripture – is that these souls have great needs that we can be a part of relieving if we will but spend a bit of our energy in their direction right now.  In heaven, it will require a degree of intellect and creativity to find new ways to demonstrate our love for each other.  But in the world of pain in which we live today, the needs are much clearer, and more immediate.  By demonstrating our love now to those in need of love, we reflect the great desire to love of our Father who is in heaven.  It is in this way, we show the world around us, what the will of the Father is.  Christ was always working to relieve the misery of those He encountered.  His judgments were reserved for those who saw themselves in no great need (ironically the religious leaders of His day).  But His mercy was always poured out without reserve on the desperate.

Are we to see ourselves as merely the “religious leaders” of Christianity today, or will we allow Christ to live out His will to relieve the suffering of those around us as we surrender ourselves to Him?  To examine in life what is of infinite value, is to see that love is never enough.  Therefore to demonstrate love to those in need may be just what they require to awaken to what is boundless, and what is possible.  To those in great need, a simple demonstration of love, a simple gesture of kindness in action, is a miracle of its own.  Imagine how many people pass by the needs of the downtrodden before the one takes action to help relieve his suffering.  The “good Samaritan” (described in Luke 10:30-37) was not the first person on the scene to encounter someone in desperate need, he was merely the first person to take action to see the need relieved.  In this parable, the image of a “Samaritan” conjured up imagery of an evil addicted hopeless person whose religious ideology was based in error.  Jews despised Samaritans for their lack of purity.  Yet the Samaritan does the very thing that the supposedly doctrinally correct spiritual leaders refused to do – to save a man in need.  Christ teaches us a different perspective in this story.  He shows us that no matter what our doctrinal belief system; the injured man on the road needs our love, more than our ideology.   A demonstration of love that knows no limits is an enactment of the will of the Father. 

The Samaritan was not praised by Christ for his doctrinal understanding, nor was he glorified by Christ as some sort of saint.  Christ was pointing out the practicality of love to change the life of another.  He was showing that love in action is more a reflection of His Father’s will than any perceived piety of religious leaders.  In short, it is love that is infinite, as it is demonstrated.  The Samaritan was indeed “wiser” than his more doctrinally accurate contemporaries, as the wisdom God values was reflected in “how” he loved the life of a stranger.  Were that story true, the friendship and bonds of love those two men would surely have established in the here and now, would be with them throughout the eons of time in the place we call heaven.  It is this story of salvation that shows us the nature of love in action.  The stranger did not already know the men who passed him by in this time of need.  But I would be willing to bet, he would certainly want to meet the one who saved him, and paid the price for his recovery.  I would be willing to bet, the victim on the road would want to know more about “why” that good Samaritan would have stopped to save him a stranger in need.  And in the seeking of the knowledge of that love, is the living witness of the God it is we serve.  It was not the Sabbath truth, or the beauty of tithing, or the promissory system of sacrifice for the atonement of sin, that would lead the robbery victim to seek our God.  It was instead the living demonstration of a God of love in action that would make a tangible difference to one in need.  And the love that moves a heart to action, can be boundless in its application, both here and for all eternity.

It is our destiny to discover the infinite.  Our limitations of self are removed through the process of re-creation as we surrender our will to Christ.  And what we find that is valued through all eternity is a love that knows no limits, and was first demonstrated in action by the very life of our God Jesus Christ.  While the beauty of truth is better understood by the wisdom God longs to give us.  It will never be better defined in our reality than when we apply wisdom to demonstrate love in the life of another.  This is the hidden truth ever revealed in the proper study of doctrine, that infinite love is at the core of every truth, or it is not truth you are examining.  And there is no better place to see what infinite love looks like than in the life of Jesus Christ.  We need not be content therefore to accept the mediocrity of human limitations.  We can instead find our current existence unbound by self.  We can explore marriages that know no limits in joy or service.  We can explore relationships with our parents, our children, our families, and our friends that we never dared to dream could be so rewarding.  We can even begin to see the melting away of our enemies, into what will ever be our closest friends, as we let love dissolve negativity and divinity dissolve mediocrity.  The selfless expression of love is our roadmap to infinity.

A New Perspective ...

You do not know what you do not know. We are finite creatures who have been conditioned to accept less than what is possible by an evil that is bent on our misery and ultimate destruction. It was never God’s intent that any sickness, blindness, disease, or addictive disorders would impact our lives and our souls. All of these maladies are a byproduct of evil. Death itself is a natural consequence of evil, as life is a natural consequence of God. But freedom from the shackles that have bound us, vision to see truth and beauty in a world that sees neither, and love poured out without measure are the hallmarks of a changed life; a life that has finally humbled itself and submitted its will to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Chemical additives (by this I mean recreational or even misused prescription drugs), cannot come close to offering you the experience of a liberated mind, heart, and soul. Endorphins that your body produces when you exercise strenuously are a mild alternative next to the feeling of freedom to the unbound heart. This is something new. This is something unheard of. This is truth and knowledge we have not had, for we stood in our own way of obtaining it. This is the experience and exhilaration that only comes when Christ sets you free from the chains of evil that have so long governed your life.

We spend so much time consumed with our sins. Either we are trying hard to avoid doing them again, or consumed with guilt after recently committing them again, or cleaning up the mess they cause – our lives, minds, and even prayers are consumed with living in bondage. In so doing, we have focused on the disease and not the cure. By turning them over to Jesus, by admitting that we actually like sin and evil and that without Christ changing our wicked core, we are doomed to continue in it – we are MADE free. Note that the work still belongs only to Him, but the freedom is far more liberating than you can imagine if you are still bound in sin. This freedom of the mind offers you an entirely NEW perspective.

There is an old computer axiom that states – “garbage in – garbage out”. Its meaning is that if you put in bad data or bad coding practices, you can expect to get inaccurate, misleading and false results. Evil has fed us nothing but garbage our whole lives and has told us we were eating cake. Take the scriptures for instance; the Old and New Testaments are considered by a great many believers to be very different from each other. Bill Maher’s famous joke line that … “having a kid seems to have mellowed out God” in the New Testament; is tacitly agreed to by many. This of course is not logically possible. God does not undergo a personality change, nor would we ever want Him to abandon the Good that He is for any alternative. So why the perception difference? It is because we view things with blurry vision, and prejudiced minds. The truth of God’s infinite love is all through the Old Testament writings, but is ignored in favor of the blood, guts, and errors of man that are so vividly described.

Many people non-believers accuse God of genocide because of the wars the Children of Israel waged on the inhabitants of the Promised land. But these wars were not God’s plan, they were made by Man’s interference with God’s ideas. God wanted to send in wasps to the promised land (plague style) to drive out the inhabitants of the land so that His people could just walk right in and settle down. No blood, no bodies, no genocide, and no wars that continued because the Israelites did not finish the job of driving their enemies out, instead getting lazy and having to contend with them for generations to come. But God’s idea about using wasps is long forgotten, next to the blood and gore of warring exploits.

People site the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of the vindictive nature of God. Yet Christ Himself went to these two cities in the flesh before making a final decision of their destruction. And all those who were not guilty of their crimes were spared. This example of the ultimate extinction of evil was designed to remind us that evil is on a time clock. It will not be granted liberty to exist forever. Someday it will be fully consumed and disappear. Think of it, Sodom and Gomorrah are not STILL burning, their residents are NOT still tortured. They were burned up and dead. The place has been grown over, and the evil that existed there is NO more. This is not a story about an Angry God, it is a story about a God who one day offers us the hope of existence without evil, in both this life and one to come.

How you see the Bible depends much on your history with it, your parents views, your pastors views, and your own clouded desires. We often try to use the Bible to justify our decisions, or prove our doctrines are correct. This is a huge mistake. In so doing, we are attempting to lead the learning ourselves, instead of being led to the truth God would share with us in His word. Using the Bible to condemn the actions of others indicates a COMPLETE lack of understanding of the message of the Bible. This book is NOT about punishment and guilt. It is about freedom from pain, about reclamation of addicts, about reconciliation with a God who is suffering from a major case of empty-nest-syndrome. We have a Daddy who wants us home. This book is a love letter from cover to cover. It is real, not dressed up, or exaggerated, it shows the mistakes so that we can learn from them, not learn to repeat them. But this requires a new perspective to see. It requires a freedom from bondage. It requires a changing life, or I am guessing you have NO idea what I am talking about. Why not give up your will to Christ and see what happens in your own life …