A Happy Couple (part 2 of 2)

“… in the image of God created He him; male and Female created He them” - Genesis 1:27. Being made in the image of God, we are able to sense and feel the need for companionship and love, as our maker created these capacities. God loves us, and we realize what it means to be loved, and to love another. God’s first lesson about intimacy was not to be His last. As such, the first marriage in Eden was not designed to be the last, but it and all that would follow were designed to last without end. God intended to use marriage to teach us what it means to love in a different way than we had already learned. Beyond how a spouse loves its partner, a child loves a parent in a completely different way. The romantic love was designed to come first, and through its expression came the familial love of parents and children, siblings, and extended families.

The first gift given to the newly married couple in Eden was the gift of procreation. We were counseled by God to “be fruitful and multiply” BEFORE any test of sin or disobedience. Therefore if our premise holds that what was perfect prior to sin, will one day be perfect after sin’s extinction; we can assume that procreation remains a gift given to loving couples who marry. Man’s repopulation could one day replace the loss of the angels who turned away from God and now delight in forming his demonic league, but there is no indication that once these numbers were met, we would suddenly stop our ability to procreate. God did not counsel us to be fruitful and multiply … to a point, or until we reach some magic number, but essentially “throughout the earth”. Our ability to create families from the union of two was established even prior to outlining our dominion over the earth, and before our first dietary menu was laid out. We could imply from this perceived pecking order, that family is MORE important than work, and MORE important even than what we eat; perhaps outlining a parent’s willingness to sacrifice for the sake of protecting and providing for their child.

Today’s parents struggle to provide for their children, often with both having to work to insure there is enough funds to eat under the roof of our own residence. But this was not the original intent of God’s plan. Survival was something He provided. Notice in these same verses, He spells out that HE GAVE us all the herb bearing seeds, vegetable, fruits, grains, and nuts for us to eat. He did not say, if you work enough, and to my satisfaction enough, then I will consider giving you what you have earned. Instead, He only focuses our attention to the “gifts” He has already provided. The devil has gotten good at using our need for survival to rationalize our priorities to earn money as being more important than meeting the emotional needs and companionship needs of our families. This is to our detriment.

Remember the feeling of “new” romantic love when all you really want to do is “be with” the object of your affection. Time together, i.e. companionship, is at the top of your priority list on the things you value in life. The same feelings occur again when holding your new-born child in your arms. Both the baby and you feel a bond from the close proximity of holding that new precious life in your arms. The baby is invariably happy as long as you’re around, the minute you’re out of view, the baby tends to get nervous, or cry. In short, a baby craves the tactile companionship of its parents. Over time, age will continually reduce the need for tactile assurance from mom and dad, but it never will fully go away. Watch a grand-parent of 80-90 years in age, hug a son or daughter who is in their late 60’s, and you still see a familial version of love that exists that is unlike all others.

This entirely new dimension of love opens the doors to even other possibilities. So we learn that love can exist in romantic form with a specific object of attention, or in familial manner with multiple objects of deep love – each with their own personalities and perspectives; and now also in a fraternal sense or perhaps better stated, between friends. Friendship of the deepest variety is a non-romantic love, but is also born of the choices to two friends. You are not born into your relationship as it is in families, but rather choose to share a similar kind of love with someone you develop a relationship with. The lessons of love than began in garden, ripple through time and relationships, and extend well beyond what we know today, and beyond our sin-sick-vision. For eternity we will study what love is, what it means to love and to be loved. It is a subject we will not tire of, grow bored with, or master fully; for as God is infinite, so Love also is infinite. We have only begun to scratch the surface.

All these lessons of love began in the Garden of Eden with our first parents Adam and Eve. It is believed that both Adam and Eve were naked in the garden, but covered as the angels are with a covering of light. This belief may well have been reverse-engineered from the descriptions of the Heavenly city to come, where each of the saints is covered in a covering of light. Apparently God’s “light” makes a good set of clothing. It was only after man sinned that he lost the cloak of lights, and realized his nudity. He then attempted to cover himself with leaves. God fashioned the first set of clothing from the skins of animals, a practice man would grow to emulate far too often. But these handmade clothes were only necessary after sin had been introduced to man. Prior to sin, a light, some say the light of righteousness, was what covered man, and will one day cover him again.

In my experience, sin is much like entropy. Entropy in the sense that everything sin touches disintegrates, falls apart, loses its value, and drifts towards nothingness. Evolution as a concept, stands in direct contradiction to the reality of entropy. Evolution would have us believe that everything around us is evolving into a better, more advanced state of being. Yet nothing in our reality supports this conclusion. Our cells divide, reproduce, and divide again – yet we all age and die. Prey evolve their camouflage and personal habits, but then predators adjust to continue to make the kill. It is said the level of naked self-interest grows with each subsequent generation. Everywhere I look, I see the effects of entropy at work. There are only certain areas where I see the evolutionary concept at work, such as computer CPU’s. They double in capacity as our manufacturing techniques improve, and has our ability to engineer more capacity in smaller spaces improves. One could rightly assert the computer CPU’s are evolving. Bu the people making them are certainly not.

It is believed that Adam and Eve created in perfection used 100% of their brains, we use around 6% now. If entropy were not at play, why not maintain our 100% usage. If we were evolving, why evolve more brain capacity than is required to survive as a species? That seems to be all the animals ever evolved into. Seems to me “cavemen” would have been the 6% capacity utilizers, with modern man being the 100% users. But science proves this notion untrue. Along with our 100% brain utilization in perfection, was a radical increase in proportionate sizing. It is believed man was somewhere around 15 feet tall and weighed nearly a ton. This radical increase in size would have made man much more formidable, and helped establish his dominance over the animal kingdom in the earth even after the fall of sin. But the Bible also states were given dominion over the fish as well. I guess we were much better swimmers then.

There was a certain strength formed in the union of man and wife. It was noticeable by Adam before it was present. It was appreciated by Adam after it was corrected. Men and women need to be together. They need to look to each other to complete themselves. It is not good for man to be alone. He needs a help mate. Men and women were created equal in every way, each different and with unique abilities and purposes, but equal to each other. But then too, the mantra of the day was not how much one could acquire, but rather how much one could do to serve another, and cause the happiness of another. A service focused society does not need to fear equality, but can rather embrace it, and demand nothing less. Our union was strong, and beneficial. Marriage became the building block of society. It is why Satan focuses so hard on destroying marriages as a means of destroying nations. With isolation comes inevitable failure. With concern for another, comes strength and unity.

The “image of God” was designed to teach us what love is. These were the lessons we were supposed to have absorbed from the study of our origins. But there was so much more to impart, a ton of things that must be completed, our first parents had as much on their plates and more as we today. But suddenly, after six days, God delays the work load, and takes a day of rest. Perhaps there is something more we are to learn …

 

A Happy Couple (part 1 of 2)

Simple algebraic logic states that if God is love, and God is infinite, then love is also infinite. Or perhaps better stated, we serve a God of infinite love. Just as no finite human being can fully describe God or somehow know His limitations; so no finite human being can fully describe love or any ideas of its limitations to what love can inspire, feel like, or be shared. Christ proved His love for us on the cross, choosing rather to risk that the stain of our sin may forever keep Him parted from His Father’s side, rather than give us up to the punishment we had earned. But the love of Christ was evident to us long before the cross marked it in His blood. Our creation was an entire testament to the love God has for His creation. The first lesson of which taught in the garden was the one of intimacy.

We are created in the image of God. This means we have a sense of the things that our creator intends because we carry His likeness. After naming the animals brought before him in the Garden of Eden, Adam observed closer the relationship between male and female. This was not simply a sexual relationship with the intention of procreation; it was a bond, the foundation of a family unit. Animals appeared to work and play in teams, or in reliance on their counterparts. It was this phenomenon that caused Adam to realize he had no such partner in his world. The animal kingdom was created male and female, but man was still alone. Adam missed the companionship of someone like himself, and this was the issue God solved in the creation of Eve.

There are many who wonder at the composition of the Trinity. Within it, we find God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Father and Son are always referred to in the masculine genre, but this of course is based on a human perspective. The Holy Spirit however is not gender identified, some speculate that it embodies the feminine qualities of the God head. It is pure speculation, as other theories suggest it is the “power” or “energy” of God unencumbered by a physical form. It is of note that man is created in the image of God, and we are listed as both male and female. Those who speculate that God is woman probably go a step too far. But as God created women, He certainly would know them inside and out, a feat men have yet to come anywhere near. Some speculate that God created Christ, this idea comes from the word “begotten”. If the example of Eden holds true, then God the Father might have taken a piece of Himself and separated it into His son Christ. This of course is pure speculation and matters little to our existence or fate. But this topic is one I imagine we will study for years to come once we enter the gates of perfection and shed ourselves of the nagging sins that now cloud our eyesight and judgment.

For Adam, God chose to perform a surgery (the first ever) and remove a rib from Adam’s side. Adam’s partner was more than just another creation from the ground. Woman, or Eve in this case, was to have originated from a completed part of man’s body. Symbolically she was made from the bone closest to our vital organs such as the heart. Eve was to be special, in that Adam would see her as a part of himself. The union of Adam and Eve sexually would literally be the reunification of Adam’s flesh, uniting both parts of himself into one. This was to be a special relationship. This was to be more than a friendship. This was to be inherently close. The love between Adam and Eve would be the greatest the world would see between man and wife until they died. Having been created before sin, Adam and Eve would know what pure love is like.

Notice that man was not left alone upon noticing his condition, it was promptly remedied. Notice that man was not given the sole power over procreation, it would take a team, it would take a woman to complete the process. Procreation would be the result of two who consented and shared their love, it was not an arbitrary decision for one to make alone. Notice that intimacy God intended for humans to understand required a man and woman in order to fully appreciate it. God did not create a platonic friend for Adam, He did not create a group of friends, He only created Eve His wife. Eve was intended to meet Adam’s needs completely on her own, and he to meet hers. “More” was not a consideration in this plan. “Time limits” were not a consideration in this plan.

Today we look at married couples in Hollywood and declare that if any couple lasts longer than 5 years they should be national heroes. Our standard of marriage completely embraces the concept of divorce; the garden had NO such provisions, or intentions. If Adam and Eve had never broken trust with God, we would all be living in perfection as God originally created it. Adam and Eve would STILL be married as they will one day again. Their marriage was created with the idea of lasting forever and ever. It is because their relationship was created for MORE than just sexual expression, and procreation. It was created to demonstrate the intimacy of families, and to show us exactly how God wishes to be a part of what we call family. He knows us better than our spouse, He loves us more than our parents or lover, He longs for our companionship more than Adam felt his own loneliness before Eve. Marriages were to be forever and will one day be so again.

What keeps our marriages from being what God originally intended for them lies in the mirrors of our homes. It is self-interest that keeps us from giving “all”. It is fear of rejection that keeps us “suspicious”. It is “looking out for number one” that literally prevents us from any sense of real fulfillment, joy, or peace. In short, it is the carnal man in the mirror, who robs us of God’s intent and designs. He must be killed, that is to say, “I” must die, if HE is to live in me. For, “I” am the enemy; His enemy, your enemy, and sadly my own enemy. It is my selfishness that destroys everything that it comes in contact with. It is the disease of sin that turns a relationship designed to show me the intimacy that God wants with me, into a 50:50 proposition based on a subjective fairness standard that is highly influenced by my own desires, prejudice, and perceived needs. Self-centered thinking becomes the cancerous root to all of my self-destructive behavior.

Those who debate gay marriage miss the lessons of our creation, in the same way as those who contemplate divorce as a solution for getting what they want out of life. Divorce was not an institution of perfection; it was an allowance to compensate for the self-focused hearts of man. It was our addiction to sin and self-service that made divorce a necessary escape from even greater levels of evil and pain. And once sin is removed, divorce will be unnecessary once again. Marriages will again be destined to last forever, sharing the intimacy that God intended. It is similar with the idea of gay marriage.

Homosexual life styles have been brought about by many factors such as genetic disposition, forced victimization of adult pedophiles on the innocent, and the purely optional choice to pervert or alter what “was” considered normal sexual expression into something else. It is impossible to judge the origins of another person’s sexuality, and so we should not. Christians should stay out of the bedrooms of others and suggest only that each person submit themselves fully to Christ and let Him lead as He will. If Christ is leading, we have nothing to fear. When we jump ahead, we err, and usually fall flat on our faces. Christian churches should not condone marriage outside of the Biblical guidelines we have been given as corporate organizations. This should include a re-examination of what it truly means to commit for eternity, how to submit one’s will to Christ, and what it means to give another 100% of yourself without thought of reward. However churches should not condemn gay partners for attempting to live a monogamous, committed, lifestyle as best they know how. Judgment should be left to God, and leadership to Christ. How individuals commit to each other is their own business. What the church sanctions is another.

The Government makes laws around families to protect property rights. It is impossible to legislate intimacy, or love. In point of fact, there are no laws required to limit how much we love our spouse, only to limit how “badly” we can treat them. Laws are a construct of sin. They are required to keep our self-interest in check, under threat of punishment. The government should not have a moral basis for marital law, only an equity based one. Insuring fairness, and equality under the law, must be the ONLY goals of governmental legislation related to families. Protect children and adults from abusive situations, insure equitable distribution of funds in situations of separation. These are fine ideals. But prevention of consenting adults to live as they choose transcends the goals of protection and equality and attempts to enforce a moral code based on one’s own ideology. This is a step too far for a government that is built on the ideas of separation of church and state. And the compelling of conscience under threat of law, is against the character and teachings of Christ. Christians should fight against such legislation even if it seems to agree with their ideology. It is in fact, against the entire nature of God to force compliance to His will. God invites, He does not compel.

Gay couples could “marry” in civil courts, non-church affiliated organizations, or even in privacy between themselves and God. The same thinking would apply to those groups of adults who choose to embrace a multiple partner scenario, it is morally no different. Attempting to marry a child or animal or inanimate object is forbidden by government laws as in each case, the intended object of marriage is incapable of making an informed consent. It is also out of the biblical guidelines of marriage as established in Eden and throughout our Bibles. Not allowing gay marital ceremonies in the church is only a reflection that we hold to the original ideals of marriage as set forth in the garden until Christ returns and can resolve any unanswered questions.

This does not mean that churches should ban gay members, or oppose adoption of children into gay families, or dishonor the commitments that gay families may choose to make to each other outside of our doors. Rather ALL should be welcomed to the hospital for the hurting that is our church. ALL should learn the solution of submitting the will and desires to Christ in order for the healing to begin. And ALL should refrain from judging anyone else along this journey we undertake. In truth, we ALL struggle with sexual sin, whether it be lust, uncommitted sex without love, adultery, jealousy, envy, greed, or even violence. To exclude gay members because they too suffer from the effects of a world steeped in sin, is hypocrisy. There is no effort to excuse or rationalize any form of sin and pain, only to escape it. The only solution for that is Christ. And that solution does not require the judgment or condemnation of others.

Christians who refuse to embrace their brothers because of a particular sin have not discovered love, forgiveness, or the solution to their own sins. When we love as He loved, we do not reject those in need, rather we embrace them, pray for them, and ask for their prayers in return. Divorced members, are no more failures, than any other who has fallen short of the ideals God has set forth. We have all missed that mark. There is no more a reason to judge others based on the failure of their marriages than there is to judge anyone for any reason. Marriages fail because we fail. Marriages fail because of sin, not just a single individual’s sin, but all sin. And what is more, marriages can succeed beyond our wildest imaginations when we put Christ back into the center of them where He belongs. It is Christ who wishes for our companionship from the garden until now. This is why He fights so hard to see His erring children return home. But there is more to learn about love from our first example, we will continue our lesson in the next section …

Home Sweet Home ...

Country folk understand. City folk are a product of the advancement of society, with our advanced technology and capabilities we are offered more time for other pursuits. We are free to gather in cities, socialize, and perform other work oriented functions that we would never have time to do if each man was personally responsible for putting food on the table each day. Our first home then, was not a city, it was a garden. But like all good things, even the garden did not spring into existence as a completed entity. It took preparation. It took planning. It took effort ,,, God’s.

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the face of the earth.” These words penned by Moses in his first book of Genesis describe our earth, before it was known as earth. Moses would have little understanding of modern astronomy or astrophysics, but his wording seems to describe our home as a random asteroid traveling through space. Moses’ words “Let there be light, and there was light” could have as easily been describing the big bang, as the creation of Sun and Moon are uniquely specified later. So whether creation covers only our Solar system, or the Milky Way itself, or traces its origins all the way back to the Big Bang is up for speculation. What is clear; is that the relevant processes that apply to life in this world as we know it, took only six days for God to complete.

Each day seems to focus on the creation of the building blocks central to what we have come to know as our planet. First our universe, galaxy, or solar system (depending on your point of view), then our planet rock itself, then an atmosphere, followed by our Sun, moon, and stars. The separation of water into clouds and lakes, allows for plant life to begin, watered each morning by the dew. After plants come birds and fish and bugs I imagine. Then the animals, and finally man himself. The things we depend on created in the order that we would need them, and each meeting the approving eye of God Himself. It is believed that Christ was our creator, and the nod of approval was from His Father during this process.

How God creates remains a mystery. Our finite minds struggle to understand the rules of physics, while our God writes them as He sees fit. To believe human wisdom has become sufficient to debate God, or argue the merits of the account creation is nothing more than to adopt Satan’s first lie. Evolutionists do NOT have proof that their “theories” are true any more than a Creationist can physically demonstrate the existence of God. Evolutionists rely upon what we know of science, and believe that science is in conflict with God. This is arrogance on their part. Science cannot be in conflict with its creator, only our understanding is what is lacking.

Lest any scientific mind wish to start spouting the empirical “truths” of the science of evolution; let them begin by concretely identifying gravity. If what we thought once to be mass, we now discover only to be new forms of energy, perhaps we do not know as much as would like to believe. If our scientific data were complete, it would prove the existence of God. But this is not His wish. We must learn to rely on His wisdom instead of our own. This fundamental choice was what led to the downfall of Lucifer and the discovery of evil. Man must learn to believe in spite of what he perceives as proof.

When you consider the details of our biology, and the relative biology of this planet, God’s creative work is a wonder to behold. Think of the sheer complexity of the human body, interdependent complex systems created simultaneously (proof in itself that evolution cannot account for our species), with sensory systems to feel, smell, taste; as well as emotional responses to interpret joy, love, affection, and peace. None of these abilities strictly required for evolution, yet each immeasurably adds to the “quality” of our lives. The smell of roses, the taste of cheese, the feel of moss between your toes in a slow moving cold stream; each of these sensations unique and indispensible to making life the adventure we all crave. All created for man to experience, and become part of who we are. All of these gifts to us from our creator.

And our first home was more than work of art in a painting in the Sistine Chapel. It was a living, breathing, 3D, sensory overloaded reality that enveloped every neuron in our brains. I imagine it to be a conglomeration of cultural expressions themed in areas, like an oriental rock garden, an English flower garden, a forested area with clearly traveled trails laid out, a tropical area with boardwalks over swampy terrain. And our first occupation was to “keep” this garden or rather stated “tend” to it. It was after all the last item prepared for man, to be his first home, his first paradise set aside for him by God Himself. I imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of his garden home to be a symphony of beauty. The vibrant colors, and life created not to ever know death but to bloom and bud eternally. This would be our perfect getaway. From here we would study and learn more of God, our world, and the conflict that raged around us.

Man was given dominion over the world around him by God. It was God’s intent that we care for the life he created. God caused each of the species of animals to come before Adam for him to name them all. This to me is an interesting idea. Why name something that is unimportant? Why name something that is nothing more than a “dumb” animal? Perhaps the life around us, is more “aware” than we give it credit. Perhaps again our scientific knowledge is too limited to understand the language of birds, the song of whales, the barks of dogs, and the purring of cats. We only seem to detect emotional intentions of our furry friends, but is this a limitation of their smaller brain functions, or a lack of our own to interpret the full volume of communication they intend?

I own two Akita puppies, a purebred brother and sister just turning 13 months old. They are playful, huge, and loving. They are fiercely protective of me and what they perceive to be their home territory. The mailman who continues to violate the sanctity of “their” mailbox gets a full measure of their attention each day. Yet communication is not always so overt. There are times when they simply come to my feet lay down next to me, and attempt to touch some part of me in the process. When it is time to go outside to use the potty, the female puppy will gently nip at my hand and begin to pace back and forth. It is her way of not soiling “our” home while letting me know she needs to get into the backyard to make a deposit. It is a routine she created, and I have been able to interpret. My former Akita who died of old age 2 years ago, used to shake his chains and make his collar jingle when he needed to go outside. He too developed this routine, and I was able to interpret; this after 6000 years of sin and degradation to my mind and theirs. I wonder what Adam might have been able to relay to his furry friends under the blanket of perfection.

I wonder how much the animals may have vied for Adam’s attention. My dogs love to play with me, it is the height of happy-time for them, and apart from exhausting me, a wonderful time for me as well. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Adam to have playful monkeys, affectionate lions, curious wolf packs, and lumbering grizzlies to entertain. I wonder if Adam worked with elephants to move heavy lumber, or played fetch with falcons as they learned to fly. The animals were all vegetarians, eating the bounty that was available to them all around. They did not prey on each other. They did not fear each other. They understood the dominion of man was meant for him to be their caretaker. Man would watch over them, and they would look at him as a form of father provider figure. There was no hunting, or intent to harm, on our part or theirs.

It is the introduction of evil that has made death a reality in our world. It is the introduction of evil that changed the perfect harmony of vegetarian animals into the dichotomy of hunters and prey. It is not the demands of survival, but the introduction of evil that is responsible for destroying perfection. And this means only the extinction of evil can ever see this disharmony removed from our world. Because of creation, animals had fear of man after the fall. They knew him to be superior, and decided to mostly avoid man as a result. Animals vastly outnumbered man, and had they “evolved” alongside of him, they would have considered man nothing more than tasty prey. Our species as envisioned by evolutionists would have been largely defenseless against great creatures like the saber tooth tiger and such. We would have been hunted to extinction quickly if this “theory” had merit. Rather, the fear of man, largely restrained animals from attempting to attack the top of the food chain.

Man was not created to remain sedate and idle with nothing to occupy his mind or hands. So our home was made to be a thing that required constant care and maintenance. Our first job was to be assigned the work of ever maintaining a living growing homestead. But amidst the work of the garden, and the company of lesser creatures, man noticed something. All the animal kingdom had been created in pairs, male and female, except for man. Each animal had a loving mate to share time, and make a family with except man. And upon noticing this absence, Adam realized he was still alone and became lonely. God saw this as well, and decided to remedy the situation for him …

The Beginning is the End

The Beginning is the End. By this I mean, that what existed before the knowledge of evil will one day be what is considered “normal” again. Where we find ourselves today could hardly be considered normal when viewed through the looking glass of eternity. Ages, eons, decades, centuries, and millennia passed by before the first dark day appeared on the radar of time. It is hard for a human mind to grasp how much of our time passed before evil raised its head in perfection. Some think God created evil, but this is untrue. As life was always founded in our God, so death was always found in the opposite of Him. But ages passed and none chose to deviate from life, from love, from perfection. Till one day, the third most exalted being in the Universe broke trust with God, and decided to follow his own wisdom instead of that of the Almighty, and rather than serving others He asked the seemingly innocuous question – what about me?

When the focus of our existence is moved from making others happy to serving only our own needs we rediscover the knowledge of evil in our souls. Every act of malice, of neglect, every atrocity committed by one person against another can trace its roots back to a motive of serving self. Indeed it is trying to please the man in the mirror that requires our legal system of laws, edicts, and punishments to deter me from acting on my own interests at the expense of another. Serving another requires no such restrictions. Loving someone else requires no limits to my imagination. But me loving me must have definitive restrictions or all those around me will suffer for my cause. It is heaven’s irony that we can only find true fulfillment when giving all of ourselves to serving others. And it is heaven’s mystery that any sentient being would willfully turn away from life and love and consciously choose misery, pain, and death. Yet this is our reality.

In a time before it was measured, Lucifer turned away from God and became Satan. The transformation was not immediate, but it was deliberate. Lucifer’s argument that “different” did not by nature have to be “wrong” was illogical but persuasive. Offering an alternative to a dichotomy of only good and evil, Lucifer tried to position his alternative as just another choice. But how does one deviate from the source of all good things and find yourself anywhere you would choose to be? Straying from life can only by conclusion lead to death. Straying from happiness can only by nature lead to misery. Straying from fulfillment can only leave one hungry. So it was with Lucifer who became Satan. He strayed from all things good until what is evil consumed his every impulse. Evil is not to be trifled with. More than an aberrant concept, evil is addictive by nature, self-destructive by action, and causes any who embrace it to kill everything they love before finally seeking the peace of release only found in death.

Evil takes no responsibility or accountability for what it impacts or affects. And so Satan blames God for his very existence, and any action he may undertake. Satan places his own characteristics on God and tries to shift the focus from the evil he does to a perfect Father God. Satan’s reasoning is that since God has the power to stop evil or destroy it before it even ever existed, the fact that it does exist, makes God responsible for not stopping it. This argument as well lacks the logic of free-will. Free-will is not just the ability to make choices without being forced, it is the fundamental building block of love itself. If we are not free to love, or not love, then we cannot be said to love at all. Love is based on a choice, we choose to love, or not. Had God created sentient life with the ability only to love Him, but never choose not to, the love would be a lie. Sentient beings must have choice to love, in order for the love to be real at all. This choice has always been with us, and it will always be with us throughout the eons of time yet to come.

But then, how does the Creator of all life get rid of evil once it springs into existence? This question is further complicated by the fact that at that time, no other beings in the universe had any knowledge of what evil is truly like. They were blissfully ignorant that any choice outside of following God existed at all. They knew only peace, they knew only love, and they knew only contentment. These were not aspirations for the creations of God prior to our existence; they were what were considered the norm. Happiness was the way of life; no-one knew what sadness was firsthand. But they would learn. For the first time sentient beings saw what happened when love was rejected. The pain of rejection was one of the first forms of knowledge for the universe to encounter about the nature of evil. For you see evil is inherently connected with pain, they cannot be separated. The longer the pain of evil is delayed from the acts of evil, the larger the pain becomes. But it always comes.

So to rid the universe of evil, time must be allotted for all sentient life to witness what evil is like for themselves. “Proof” must be offered that alternatives to God end in evil, and all evil ends in death. Now that trust had been broken, choices must be made about where to place one’s faith in ideology. Lucifer was not stupid, and the effects of evil had only begun to take hold on him. Over time he would be more marred by what he embraced, but at the outset of this conflict of ideas he was universally known and appreciated as the third highest being. God sat on His throne, Christ at His right hand, Lucifer at His left. This was an honored position. The one who now only thought to serve himself had recently been known as a chief among servants. And so a third of the angels took heed of the cunning words of Lucifer and joined with him in breaking trust with God. The sadness multiplied.

Where once power was only valued in how it could be applied to improve the lives of others, now power was sought to rule in the stead of one’s enemies. Even Lucifer was aware there was no way to exceed the power or divinity of God, but if he could equal it, he thought to demand the attention and worship of the remainder of God’s creation. Where God was worshipped from hearts of love, admiration, and gratitude until now – Lucifer would be happy to be worshipped from hearts of fear, or minds bent under his control. What Lucifer wanted was the absolute control over life and death in order to keep his subjects in line. After all, what choice did he have, no one could love what he proposed, for his very proposals of serving self would conflict with worshipping him. People would love only themselves in his government and therefore have no incentive to worship Satan unless based solely on the fear of pain or non-existence. None of this could God allow.

But evil does not value reason, nor will it listen to the pleas of love. Evil demands domination and speaks only in terms of power and consequences. And so the unthinkable happened, in the very center of the universe, near the throne of God himself, there was war in heaven. War is not debate. War is not merely an argument. War is not just based on a battle of ideas, it is also founded in a physical struggle for supremacy between two opposing forces. Where once a city in perfect harmony existed, the invention of weapons would soon be another byproduct of the existence of evil. There was war in heaven. Christ and his angels, pushed out Satan and his angels. And Satan began looking for another base of operations he could call home. He went out to each world where God created sentient life and presented his arguments for an alternative to the kingdom of God. He was heard. But he was not accepted.

It was during this time, that the idea of creating man was presented within the Godhead. One could argue that it could not have come at a worse time. One could argue that Satan’s exclusion from the planning for our existence was one factor in his jealousy over the distinction he now recognized in Christ’s role over his own. Christ was always the Son of God, Lucifer only the archangel or highest of the created angelic hosts. But in an environment based on the outpouring of love this distinction was not nearly as pronounced until Lucifer was omitted from the discussions about man. Had his trust remained in place, this exclusion would not have been necessary. But as he had free-will to rebel against God, and fully intended to execute that will, he had to be omitted. Man would suffer enough under the rulership of God’s enemy without him having the inside knowledge on what was to come. But why now? Why under these condition? Is there no limits on free-will?

Love has no limits. And true love must always come from the choice to embrace it. So to delay our creation until evil was exterminated was to “load the deck” and risk that man too might someday choose to turn from God on his own. There was no reason to delay our creation if one truly believes in the power of love over evil. And God firmly believes in this premise, and has been proven right many times over. So in the middle of the greatest conflict of the ages, man was brought into existence.

Those Christians who say man was made to worship God have no understanding of what they say. If all God needed was more beings to worship Him, he could have simply made more angels, or any other assorted sentient being that he made before us. We were not created to fill a void in the ego of God. We were not created with a worship or die mantra tied to our necks. Rather, we worship God for the same reasons that all other life does – from a heart of love, admiration, and gratitude what He does for us all the time. Our worship is a voluntary reaction to our love, not a prerequisite of His approval. We cannot buy His affections, and yet cannot help responding to them. It is because we are loved that we love. It is because we are already loved that we respond. We are not looking to secure love with our responses, it has already been given to us. Anything we do is in recognition of what He has already done, not what He will do. For the end is the beginning, we already know He loves us, and will love us, for it is already so.

But where would humanity side in the conflict that raged on beyond our world’s domain? Would we be faithful to the God who created us and remain trusting in Him, or would we like the one third of angelic host decide to break trust with God and put it in ourselves. It is in this time that the story of our existence begins. It is set against this conflict that we sprang into existence. It is important for us to look back and study where we came from, value the lessons of our past, as we face the choices that will no doubt end our world. While we live in the closing chapters of our human species as we know it, there is still value in studying how it began. What the intent of our God was for us, where we went wrong, and why it will never happen again. All of this can be found in the first few chapters of the first book of the Bible. There is much in what Moses penned that we still have not learned, but can.

It is these lessons that evolution would undermine. As from the foundation of time, Satan wishes us to believe there is still an alternative to the dichotomy of good and evil. He presents us evolution as a scientific theory that can safely deny his own existence as well as God’s. Man is free to exist under the power of his own wisdom. Good and evil can then become subjective concepts left up to the conscience of each person if they have one. No need to seek to find something more, no need to try to fill the hole in our soul that cannot be quenched outside of finding our maker – only empty and vain pursuits that leave us with nothing. It is not the weak mind that embraces creation; it is the mind that hungers for something more than serving self can ever deliver. It is the enlightenment of His Spirit that can take us back into the love letter that is our Bible and begin again, reading what Creation has yet to teach us. This world is not our home. We were meant for something more. Let us return to the beginning and find out what it will be like past the end of time as we know it …

A New Earth ...

At last … death itself is finally an obsolete concept, as is pain, heart ache, remorse, and guilt. It is only AFTER hell is ceased that all who love like He loves can finally be free. It is only AFTER death itself is done away with, no more to remind us of our former frailty, no more to bring to mind those things that cause us such pain; that we who have been redeemed are set free to love without boundary or regret. Scripture in Revelations chapter 21 begin by quoting the prophet … “and I John saw a new heaven, and a new earth, … for the former things are passed away.” John begins describing the beauty of heaven, but not before he stops to note the absence of death, pain, and sorrow. This sequence of events is required before our ultimate freedom can finally be realized. The last great controversy between good and evil must end.

Human minds are a frail thing. Our imaginations are colored by our perceptions of what is important, what we wish we could do, and limited by what reality has imposed on us. In John’s day, nations were made up of tribal peoples (extended families) generally settled in a similar region, joined together if prosperous by city states, possibly under a king. The height of civilization as John knew it would have been a giant city state. And so with intricate care John proceeds to give us the details of the Holy City of heaven that God has prepared for us to live in eternally. He enumerates the foundation and shows it depth of various valuable stones. He tries to give us an idea of the size, by modern dimensions about 300 miles square, but also as tall as it is wide, at its highest zenith, the throne of God Himself. The city is gated with solid pearl gates, a phenomenon that would have confounded the wisdom of his day both financially and militarily. Never has so large a single pearl ever been imagined, and if it existed, no known battering ram would likely have success in forcing it open. Just in its description of the gates, heaven is set out as an unconquerable city. It is impregnable.

Farming cultures dream of farming mansions, but in every modern city, grass tends to give way to streets, and development. Only parks maintain a connection with nature as it were, and houses or places of residence tend to be stacked on top of each other forming tall towers in order to fit higher numbers of people into small spaces. John might have marveled at New York City, or Los Angeles, but it might have only inspired him to better understand the need for height in the vision of our heavenly city. I imagine a great number of us may be living in penthouse type structures within large towering buildings, but then my imagination is colored by my current realities of large American cities.

Were I more of a quantum physicist I might imagine the same physical space occupied by heaven used in an infinite number of dimensions each with a different cultural or physical expression. Groups of families or perhaps simply random beings might move from one dimension and configuration to another in the blink of the mind’s eye; all occupying the same space and time, but segregated by which dimensional configuration they choose to exist within at one time; or if you really want to bend your mind a bit more; perhaps existing in several dimensions at once.

Of course you may read my ideas and decide this kind of multi-dimensional existence is impossible, or against the laws of physics as we know them today. But this is sort of my point; we do not know if a parallel universe exists or not but God would. We study the laws of physics, God writes them. We make mistakes in what we dream is possible, while God is not bound by our limitations or mistakes. We only use a fraction of our polluted brains today, while consuming poisonous foods, in a contaminated atmosphere, where moderation and temperance are by gone concepts. It is no wonder our minds are too finite now to truly understand what heaven will be like. But once there, our diets will be sheer exuberance, feasting on foods that baffle the taste buds in pleasure, while being converted completely without waste into pure energy. The water will bear no resemblance to the tainted earth we poisoned in our greed and arrogance, it will be clear, pure, refreshing and more satisfying that anything we could even imagine now. With water this pure, think of the ripple effects in the fruit drinks we make, the smoothies we enjoy, the shakes and frozen ambrosia’s we could construct. Imagine not being bound to the idea of seasonal harvests, but having them year round. What a restaurant we could open in the New Jerusalem.

But the construction of heaven is hardly the important thing that makes it special. And while our diets will no longer make us fat, and we can partake of every good thing the Lord makes for us, eating is only a minor distraction in the world to come. At first brush, I used to cringe at John Lennon’s famous song “Imagine” thinking it was an agnostic view of utopian life. But in later years, I have begun to see his line of … “imagining there was no religion” … as being a statement against the organized fanaticism that grips our world. “Nothing to live or die for” removes all the political motivations, as well as the basic need for survival motivation that today cause us so much harm. Perhaps my earlier hesitations about his song were incorrect; perhaps John Lennon is describing life in heaven. But even the peace and harmony he describes is not the singular thing that makes our heaven special.

I can imagine no limits on learning or travel. I can imagine touring stars, galaxies, and even to the edges of the Universe and back. I can imagine putting the knowledge I gain to use in constructing an entire solar system, planet by planet with housing, entertainment, food, places to visit – live – or enjoy for any who are interested. I can imagine creating more enhanced musical instruments, carving ornate furniture from rare woods, building elaborate swimming pools with fountains, slides, frozen fruit bars, waterfalls, and perhaps even a few log flumes as well. My earthly imagination can stretch beyond what is practical in this world. I believe we will travel at the speed of thought. But while I can imagine a great deal, still my imagination is stunted by my current environment, in short, I see through a glass darkly. But again it is not even the limits or lack of them, in my imagination that makes heaven special.

I will finally be free to live to serve others. This will be a decided change for me, as now I seem to live mostly to serve me (a trait I recognize requires Christ to change in me). But there my service to others will be my top priority, and will not be hampered by lack of resources, time, or imagination. I can find new ways to please my wife, my children, my parents, my friends, my heroes, and the strangers I encounter in any way I am able. The freedom to serve will be the most liberating feeling I will ever experience, and with it a joy there are no words to describe it with. The deepest contentment will dwell within me as I strive harder and harder to raise the standard for my service to others. This liberation, the antidote for sin and self-centered-ness, this is close to the best thing about heaven. But then my freedom is not the number one thing making heaven special.

Love, exploring the depths of love, and in so doing beginning to understand God better is close to it. We have only sampled what love is on this earth. It will take new creations to begin to contemplate it properly. The love of God for us will be something we will study for eternity, and will always learn something new and more about it in that time. To explore Love is to explore God. But even the largest attribute about God being love, is not what makes Heaven special. There is something even more than that.

It is God. It is His Son Jesus Christ. It is His Holy Spirit. It is God. Before we existed there was God. He made us with the thought of spending time with us. We are His children, created individually for His purposes for all space and time. To be with God, reconciled of our evil, rejoined with Him finally. This will be what makes heaven – Heaven. It is not the dazzling brilliance of the city. It is not the intricate architecture, swimming in the river of life, petting the tigers, talking to Moses, or even pleasing the wife that makes heaven ultimately so special. It is being with God. It is being close to the source of infinite love. It is feeling Him, hearing Him, learning from Him, sharing with Him, receiving from Him, giving to Him, honoring Him, and worshipping Him from a heart that cannot sit still. It is being with the God we have been forced by our evil to remain distant from. This is salvation. This is freedom. To be rejoined with our God; NEVER to be parted again. Multi-dimensional universes of infinite distance across cannot separate us anymore from our God. For where we are, He will be.

He will be able to talk with us one to one. He can answer our questions, give us a hug, ski with us down a snowy mountain (or perhaps teach me how), laugh with us, eat with us, and watch us while we sleep. And all of God can do this, not just Jesus, but Father and His Spirit – each distinct – each yearning to know us better without the wall of sin between. God’s ability to be everywhere allows Him to spend individual time with every single saved soul. The reunion with God will be unlike anything we can imagine. We are told today, that we are not alone. But our vision is blighted by our sin, and we do not see how our Father longs to show us He is at our side. In heaven, this will be visible to us. In heaven, spending time with God will be our ultimate reward. Like oxygen we cannot get enough of, we will be reconciled to our Father’s side forever. Nothing is more important than this, nothing else can even come close.

I take great assurance in knowing that everything ends with the death of evil, in me, and outside of me. I take comfort in the promise of my Savior to redeem even me. And I find joy unbridled that one day we will be united together never to be parted again. That is the home I seek. That is the mercy of the greatest gift of all time, that I will never be worthy of, and cannot be done praising Him for. That my friends, is the heaven I aspire to. I hope to see each of you there. I pray that Christ will begin by changing the core of me in preparation for that great day.

The Last Great War ...

Once more into the abyss … Finally, after so much delay, after so many years that have turned into centuries and centuries into millennia, the time for the ultimate extinction of evil has come. But alas, evil will not go down quietly. Once more, there is a time for war, one last final battle to decide the very fate of existence and death itself. This is the time to end all time, and after our work in heaven has been completed at the appointed time, it begins.

At the end of our first millennia in heaven, the time comes for end of evil. As such, the city itself moves from its stellar location back to the completely decimated planet earth. It descends on what used to be the city of Jerusalem. There is nothing there now, except the destruction that rained in great hail so many years ago. The bodies long rotten, decayed and returned to the dust they started from. The people of God do not wish to travel beyond the protective gates of the city, for at this time, evil lurks outside and will be set free “for a season”.

Satan is loosed from his bonds. The wicked dead are called forth from their graves. They do not come out as the righteous did, raised to the perfection of body and mind. Rather, the wicked are raised in exactly the same state that they went into the grave, diseased of body and mind. Every ailment is still in place, every scar, every wound, nothing is as it is wished to be. There is no guardian of light to lift them into the bosom of a loving God, as this is not something they ever wanted. The wicked wanted only the wealth and benefits of eternal life without any understanding of how to maintain true fulfillment. They would gladly steal what they wished for, even kill for it, as in life, nothing has changed. The only love that exists in them, is the warped love of self, that has always ruled their thoughts and actions.

Having come up from the grave, now what? Satan and his demonic fallen angel host begin to work miracles of their own, healing the wounds, and making ready an army. The city of God is a bright beacon of the perfection the wicked will not enjoy. The obvious wealth lies there for the taking. The inhabitants are push-overs, love-obsessed, weaklings. There will not be any real resistance, for the inhabitants do not wish to fight at all. Easy marks. And so the wicked are marshaled into hosts of mighty men, women, and children filled with hate in their eyes and souls. Love has left them. Hope has abandoned this crowd, They have nothing to lose, nothing is left to them but to kill the inhabitants and in so doing banish God to a far-off part of the universe to sleep while his fallen creations run amok, This is the fate that Satan convinces the wicked they can achieve under his leadership. He claims to know the secret to killing God, which is to say, putting God to sleep, so they can finally be free of His overbearing laws, and need for worship.

Here even at the end of all things, the great deceiver once again spins lies into beliefs. It is he who requires worship. It is he who would gladly control our every thought to insure his place at the forefront of our lives, even now on the precipice of losing it all. He has no choice to proceed to his doom. He has no options left to hurt God but to keep the wicked committed to rejecting the source of all Love. And so he uses the only weapon he has left, deceit and guile to motivate men to hasten their own destruction. No forgiveness is sought now. No repentance sought. No change of mind, heart, and soul – no surrender to Christ will be attempted now. No, only preparation to conquer what was not given.

If I wake in this crowd, rather than to the mercy of heaven and my loving Lord, I will know it is my fault, and I deserve what is coming. But I cannot imagine doing anything but laying face down in the dirt and weeping at the loss that I will never spend precious time with my Savior God. I would pray for death, for the mercy of non-existence. For to be so close to the source of love, and to find I have rejected it, to find my desire was insincere, my surrender far from complete, to find I have succeeded – only - in killing myself. This is the stark realization that proximity forces in the minds of those who thought they knew better. In the minds of all those who chose to serve expediency rather than God, in the minds of every skeptic who would not hear the word of the Lord, in the minds of every coward to who listened to the voice of men over the still small voice of conscience. To these; the stark realization that there will be no joyful reunions in perfection, only an imminent death.

Yet despite what are obvious facts, the wicked choose again to believe a lie, and they march on the city figuring to overthrow it easily. As they near the gates of pearl, the sky becomes a theatre such as has never been witnessed by men. Satan is frozen unable to move. The hearts of all are stilled by the spectacle of it all. Both righteous and wicked alike stare at the panoply that was once our atmosphere. In this 3D, HD, projection is told the story of Satan’s fall from grace, of our parents in the garden, and then down through time each significant event in the great controversy. Each man, woman, and child, whether saved or not, sees their own lives play out in real time before their eyes – but this time their eyes are opened to the attempts God makes to redeem us, and our responses to His love. We see the effects of the great controversy with evil on our lives from womb to tomb. Then for all to see, a replay of the life of Christ, His birth, death, resurrection and ascension. Afterwards, the martyrs and the history of gospel unfolds, finally his second coming replayed. Time is irrelevant during this presentation as all see their own lives, and the story is revealed in truth to all.

Even the wicked cannot resist the power of Love in front of their eyes, and each and every voice declares that ONLY the lamb is worthy, that truly there is ONLY one God, one Son, and one Holy Spirit. The righteous again hurl themselves down in abject humility discarding their crowns and weeping that they too once caused our Savior the pain He endured to save us all. The sadness is so thick in the air you could cut it with a knife. For while there is gratitude that mercy has saved each of the redeemed, there is great sadness in the city that wicked would not be so redeemed. The disease of self has now finally claimed the throngs that lay outside the city gates. They will never sing His praise with us, join in service, and experience the perfection of love. Their time is at an end.

And as the wicked return to their senses, hardening their hearts once again to the influence of love, their cry ascends to kill the creator. Where only moments before they could not contain acknowledging His worthiness, now that self has returned to control again, they must kill the thing that is worthy. For all deviation from God’s ways leads only to killing the creator. This is the lesson of sin. There is no middle road. There is no compromise with evil. There is only God and good and life and love, the opposite of all of that – no middle road, no grey area. Satan represents now to the world what sin does. He is unmasked before his followers. Men marvel that he is not nearly as impressive as he tried to portray. He is nothing. He is marred by the evil he has so long nourished in himself. Men begin to question why they were ever so deceived.

And the curtain drops … Clouds gather from nowhere, but rain will not be found. Instead, great drops of burning hail begin to fall to the ground. Fire rains from heaven itself, it explodes from the magma under the earth, there is no escape from it. And the wicked begin to burn, each consumed according to the sentences proscribed so long ago. Satan will die last, as he is the father of all evil, but he will die. And the effects of hell, the punishment of death, of eternal non-existence will last forever and ever. The smoke of their torment ascending forever and ever refers to the profound effects of sin ever fresh in each redeemed mind. One by one, all the wicked pass away into nonexistence, until finally only death itself is left to be consumed. And so it is. No more death. No more fire. No more punishment to dread, or to witness. The war is finally over. Evil is no more. Gone forever. It is time for something we can hardly begin to comprehend in our current state …

Millennia ...

One thousand years. The Bible speaks of a thousand years in Revelations chapter 20, as a sort of time-out for Satan. He is bound to this earth alone in solitude for a thousand years with no-one to deceive. Those who did not embrace Christ and the freedom from evil He offers die and remain asleep until the thousand years are ended. At that point they are resurrected for a little season. But before we get too far ahead, I would like to focus a bit of attention on the thousand years.

We saved followers of God will be in heaven (the city). We will be given coverings of light, a harp which we will instinctively know how to play, a new name, a ring, and a crown containing stars to symbolize those we were instrumental in helping to show the love of God to. We will be eating from the tree of life and drinking from the river of life. We will be feasting at the table of God in gigantic banquets, and singing songs of praise not even the angels can truly understand. And we will be casting our crowns at the feet of Jesus as we come to realize our true unworthiness, and His great love and mercy that sees us in the place we are in. But we are not here for just parties, and worship. There is a work still to perform; a work requiring a thousand years.

First; why that number? After all Satan could have been bound for a day or a million years, it is relatively immaterial to us isn’t it, as we have forever in our mindsets at this point. Some believe, this thousand years is a symbol of the Sabbath rest, as our created life on earth is about 6000 years old, the seventh millennia could be a symbolic recognition by our creator that our earth itself needed a rest. This kind of speculation regarding the significance of numbers in the Bible is interesting, but not necessarily based in fact. Similar speculations exist around the number 400 for example. There was about 400 years between the flood and Abraham, 400 more years until Moses, 400 years of Judges, 400 years of Kings, and 400 years of captivity and desolation just prior to Christ’s first coming. Since then another 2000+ years have passed. There are 12 tribes of Israel names after their 12 brother / sons of Jacob; there are 12 gates to the city, and 12 foundation stones it is built upon; 12 disciples that became 12 apostles. Seven days in a week; seven candlesticks in a holder in the temple; seven last day churches; Interesting phenomenon around numbers, but nothing too telling – so why introduce a millennia now?

Perhaps this thousand years is for the benefit of Satan himself; a chance for him to contemplate all the vast pain he is responsible for; a chance for him to realize just how far from God and perfection one can go when at first the deviation looks so small. But as Satan seems to have only ever hardened his position against God, I doubt this time period is for his benefit. What about us? I submit there are two pressing concerns left over from our time spent on earth. The first is the disposition of those who are not with us in perfection. We have never been intended to judge anyone while on earth, the lives, actions, and motives of others are hidden from our view; but in heaven this situation changes. The biggest judicial review of history itself begins, as the books are thrown open to all who have interest to review the records of the fallen and insure God’s judgments are fair and upright. It will be difficult for parents to see a missing child, and not question if perhaps a mistake has been made. Still more difficult for married couples who spend their lives together, attend church regularly, and find they are now parted in eternity (one waiting the resurrection of the wicked, one already in perfection). To let go of the love for those we care most about, will require a degree of “proof” so often demanded in our world.

And the records will be opened. We will see every detail of the lives we examine, from the earliest cognitive responses, to the dying breath and thoughts. We will see every deed, every word, and every thought behind them as recorded in the books of life and of death in heaven. And the pain of it will be immense. For we will share the pain God feels, when He is forced to acknowledge His rejection in the hearts of those He thinks only to love. It breaks the heart of God to be rejected by His creations, His children, His precious treasures; as it will then break our hearts no longer burdened with pride, selfishness, and thoughts of how we might be perceived to be caught crying. Tears will flow like rivers as we read the detailed accounts of those we loved, of memories we never saw from their perspectives, as time after time they choose to reject love, and embrace self-interest. Every attempt that God makes to lure them to Him is rejected. Every sin against them committed even by us, is capitalized on, by Satan to harden their hearts against our God. For we bear responsibility in the loss of our family, of our loved ones, of our world, and community. Our lack of action, our lack of giving when it was needed, our unwillingness to sacrifice time, energy, or resources when needed to save another at the most critical times will have played a role in the demise of another’ eternal soul.

We do NOT yet understand the great price we are paying with our constant addiction to self-interest in this life. We have no idea of the magnitude of our tiniest decisions. We have no idea the impact of our casual words spoken without thought of how they may be heard and interpreted. We are so careless with the lives of others, as we refuse to see the value in other souls, and focus only on our own. Were all the members of a church to simultaneously fall into vision and foresee the great impact of their selfishness during this special millennia, they would awaken and give every cent they had to the cause of Christ. They would gladly quit their jobs, and spend every ounce of energy ministering to the needs of those who now they ignore. For the price of a lost soul, weighs too heavy on perfected hearts. When finally we love as He loves, we are not equally protected and assured that we did all we could to help others as God does. For God is perfect in His efforts to redeem fallen man, but we; we are much less perfect. We put self ahead of our efforts to save others, as self blinds us to the cost and impacts of what we do. It will be at this time, that we will require healing from our God in order to continue to exist. And healing will come again, as He wipes all tears away from our eyes. For despite our shortcomings and responsibility for the loss of other souls, our God remained faithful to try to redeem them, and they would not.

Those who believe that hell burns forever, do not fully understand what it is like to have heart like the one of our God. To love as God loves is not a casual thing, or a part-time endeavor. Love cannot be blinded to the needs or pains of another, rather love is keenly aware of these things. To love as God loves is to be filled with love from bottom to top, to be consumed with how to bring peace, joy, and comfort to the object of our love – with NO thought of reward. To love another is its own reward. Our time in heaven must be long enough for us to insure for ourselves for all time that our God has been just in how He has dealt with those who refused to embrace Him. But our time must have a limit so that we do spend our days in dread of the execution of the sentences that have been pronounced.

For me, I almost do not want to know. The mercy that I would be in perfection is enough for me to trust in whatever judgments God has made on those I find missing. I already know, my record will be wanting. I already know, I have not done enough to save those I love. I already know, my selfishness will be more than enough to break me in the world to come. No matter what I do from this point forward, my deeds to this point have caused more pain than sought redemption. I already know I have been an instrument of destruction, more than a reflection of His love. While I believe He can and does forgive me; for me to open the records of others to review and remember my own participation in their demise is already too much for me to bear. Even so Lord, save me from myself and the evil I seem powerless to evict from my soul.

The self-interested heart finds a kind of fulfillment in the judging of others. There is a kind of satisfaction in trying to uncover the truth, and render a just sentence, for deserved behaviors. We think of judging the wicked in these terms today, because our hearts are infected with self. But when made pure from our disease; the work of judging those who were more like us that we care to admit, and who suffered at our own hands will not be a satisfying, fulfilling work. It will be nothing but sad. Sorrow will fill the halls of heaven while this work must persist. We will verify what does not need verification. We will review true justice and infinite love, and the mystery of how it can continue to be rejected in the hearts of man. It is a strange work we are destined to perform.

You see it is impossible to fully enjoy eternity at this point. For evil still exists, it exists in the embodiment of Satan bound alone on earth, it exists in his demonic following, it exists in those who sleep and await a resurrection to judgment. While evil continues to exist in the universe, it is impossible to fully enjoy eternity with God. For us to finally be free, the influence of evil must be rid of throughout all of time and space. This must begin in our hearts and minds. We must learn the lesson Satan failed to learn. We must trust God completely, regardless of how it looks to us. We must rely on His wisdom, knowing He does nothing to hurt us, and everything to save us. We must come to know, that only God can be trusted despite whatever considerable knowledge we gain over time. This lesson Satan failed to learn. When facing a conflict with God, He broke trust with God, and trusted in himself to the downfall of everything that followed him in this. Our ability to choose away from God will exist forever, but our inclination to choose it will be halted for permanently etched in our minds is the price for lack of trust.

We must also learn the lesson that Adam failed, by not trusting God with those who we love. We must be confident that God loves us all, and will provide for our need to love in a special way for all time and eternity. For we will never tire of loving, as love itself is the basis or definition, or substance, or power, make-up of our God beyond the point of our current understanding. Given our choice to trust God above ourselves, and with everything that we love; we will finally be ready to see the extinction of evil from all the Universe. And this extinction is right around the corner …

Second Coming ...

And just when you thought your life was at the end of its rope … Given the massive scenes of destruction described in Revelations that immediately precede the most anticipated event in history - the second coming of Christ; it is a miracle that anyone is alive and still waiting. From the loss of religious freedoms by well-intentioned moralists, to the coming of Satan as Christ – from the prohibition to follow the Bible, to the demands to worship as one is told, not as one believes – from the plagues that comes from God, and the destruction and demonic possessions that originate from Satan – now finally to the mental agony of knowing your past is laden with sin, but unable to find one in the present to ask forgiveness for: it all comes down to this – Jesus returns.

A small dark cloud appears in the sky about the size of a man’s hand, as it approaches the earth it becomes larger and larger. Scientists will no doubt attribute this event to a world-wide cataclysmic end to our existence. As it approaches it transforms from darkness to light, eventually becoming more brilliant than the sun. I imagine when He is finally near enough that every eye shall see Him, He will be seen large enough to encircle the Globe, surrounded by angels in the clouds around Him. What the wicked will hear as the most ominous sound in human history, the righteous will hear as the most beautiful music they could ever comprehend. The sound of love to one, is the sound of guilt to the other. The sounds of acceptance and belonging to the those who have maintained their allegiance to His word, is the sound of impending doom to those who have rejected it. Our brothers, wives, and children personally engaged in the premeditated act of taking our very lives to extinguish all remaining opposition to the world’s new leader Satan disguised as Christ, will break off from their deeds and realize quickly their error.

Terror begins to fill the hearts of those who have sworn their allegiance to the imposter Christ. They realize they are deceived, and even more realize their own willingness to participate in the deception. Those who presumed they had control over the lives and fates, and believed that nothing could touch them now, find themselves vulnerable in the presence of true power. They like Adam and Eve in the garden, feel exposed, naked, unable to mask their wickedness. And “self” cries out to hide from the expositor of its evil nature. They begin to think better to die, than to face the picture of infinite love with a heart that is devoid of all love. Great regret fills their minds, as they realize all the times that love reached out to them, and they refused it. Their unyielding addiction to self overwhelms them, and they begin to seek suicide as their answer, crying for the rocks and debris to fall on them and hide them from the light of love.

But as afraid as the wicked are, there are a few Charlatans who believe despite their recent past, and compromises with evil to stay alive, they will be forgiven and join with those who have remained faithful unto death. They approach Christ, and ask Him, why they are not ascending to greet Him in the clouds, for they have waited a long time too. And He reveals to them the emptiness of their words as He says … “Depart from me, for I know you not.” Their religious actions were as upright as any human eye could determine. They cast out demons, healed the sick, preached to the masses – and yet never had a true conversion of the heart. They never learned how to love, or what love means. For despite their outward appearances, they did not visit those in prison (the guilty). They felt no kinship with the homeless (the poor, and sometimes mentally ill). They had no sympathy on the sick when the cameras and lights were not around. In short, they were able to walk by every need – unaffected. If this is you today, you should ask Christ to change your heart so that you see “need” as He sees it; so that in this great and mighty day, you will not be a part of this crowd.

So many profess Christ in our world today, but do not allow Him to truly change who they are. They do not let Him root out the self-addiction we all suffer from, and as such are blind to the needs all around us. Without true change the heart does not break for the condition of our fellow man, it hardens against them. Without true reform, we are unmoved at the plight of others, and completely subsumed with our own fates. The mark of a Christian is the tear stains on his cheeks as he listens to the pain of his brother. The mark of a Christian is far from the 666 branded in the evil doers, but is the smile he offers when helping another’s needs even at the expense of his own. The mark of a Christian is the heart of Christ embedded within him. It is unnatural for humans to become like Christ, it takes an active action of Christ on our hearts and minds to become as He is. We must ask for it. We must allow it. Or we will never know the joy or the power of it in our lives today or in heaven.

We watch amazed from our positions around the globe, as He calls all the righteous dead to resurrection. There are no disembodied souls accompanying Him on His triumphant return to earth to claim His family and servants. There are angels with Him. There are those first fruits He took with Him from His first trip to earth when we arose on the third day. There is Enoch, who was the first human to so totally submit his own will to Christ, that he literally left earth to walk heavens streets since before the flood. There too is Elisha who was carried away on a chariot of fire. Moses who was called from the earth since long ago. These men and women were real humans, who lived real human lives, and some died real human deaths. But they were all invited to heaven before the main harvest, as a sampling of first fruits to present to God. But now is the time for the main harvesting of the world.

The remaining dead come forth from the last place on earth they died or were buried. They come forth from death, nowhere near as they went into it. They come renewed, recreated in perfection, back to the image their creator intended, fully restored in body, mind, and heart. They are the perfect age, perfect height, perfect weight. They can see for miles with their transformed eyes, and hear a pin drop at the edge of the galaxy with their renewed ears. Their hearts are beating rapidly as their king who they gave their last ounce of courage for has called them back into existence. Death, like sleep, has passed many years as if only a second. Their minds were just seconds ago occupied on their imminent demise and now are fully engaged at the spectacle of their ascension in to the clouds to be with their King. They have no knowledge of what has taken place since they died, nor how long it has been. It is as if their lives have never been interrupted by death, only a momentary pause, and then the scenery changed dramatically.

Now perfected in His image, their hearts, minds, and bodies are free from all traces of sin. They have no natural inclinations to do evil, or serve self. Those things have been finally, and fully eradicated from their existence. They are inclined to love. They are inclined to serve. And now, as the realization of what is happening to them comes fully to mind they turn and ask their accompanying guardian angels, where their loved ones are. I hope the answers do not break their hearts once again.

How merciful our God to allow the dead to sleep untouched by woe in our world that continues after they leave it. Those who believe the dead in Christ, never really die, have no concept of what it would be like to be perfect mind, heart, and soul, and watch the sin and evil of your loved ones be repeated again and again and again. No Saint, should even have to be exposed to the true nature of evil in those they care about around them. The revelation of true character would break their hearts over and over and over again. It is the mercy of God, to allow the dead to sleep without dreams of consciousness of any kind. When finally awakened in the great day of His coming, their lives will forever focus forward on the positive things around them, no more to contend with the burden of sin.

But on this day, death itself must yield up its harvest to our King. Adam and Eve arise, and every faithful servant of God since them to us who have fallen, wake up. They are caught up first says the scripture, then we which are alive and remain (Thessalonians 4:16). Finally it is our turn, our angels are revealed to us as in the twinkling of an eye (or perhaps better worded the blink of an eye), we too are transformed into the perfection God intended for us. Like the dead who have been raised, we are still unique, still distinctive, and still recognizable to those who knew us – but perfection is a long way from what we are today. The blemishes in our skin are gone, the discolorations in our hair gone, the cowlicks, the scraggly beards, the imperfect muscles, the over-abundance of fat cells, the imperfections in our senses, and perhaps most importantly – our minds are freed from the effects of sin both inherited and indulged in our lifetimes. We are truly, and finally free.

This alone, the final and full freedom from sin and all of its effects, and inclinations makes this day the greatest in the existence of mankind short the days that enabled it. Only the life of Christ in our world could mean more to us than the day of our freedom, for without His life, our day of freedom would never be. The Bible will have finally reached its fulfillment as reconciliation with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit will have been achieved. No more prisoner to self, or bound to serve it, we can walk into the throne room and bow and speak directly to the God of the Universe. This is beyond the imaginations of men. It is asking an ant to describe nuclear fusion in a common language, our minds like those of the ant, have been limited by our sinful condition so long, that in the present world there are no words to describe the meaning it will have to be face to face with God without fear, with only love.

Time itself is put on life support. As a concept, time will lose much significance when facing eternity with God. But there is still some events that take place in the measure of time. A prophet once wrote we would not immediately return to the city that same day. It would take as much as a week to get there. I imagine during this week, families will reunite. Lessons will be given to us about the remainder of the Universe, how it functions, how to travel it at the speed of thought. I imagine our work will be laid out in front of us as for the coming 1000 years we have a new duty to perform. I imagine there will be so much joy and information than even now, our feeble minds cannot begin to comprehend it all. But it will be.

Back on earth, the ascensions of both living and dead righteous complete. There remain a few tasks to complete. There were a small group of people who were raised at the second coming of Christ to witness it first-hand. These were not a privileged few, rather a cursed few. They were the priests who killed our Lord on His first trip here. They were raised to see His words fulfilled with their own eyes. And their lament was loud, and formidable. As with all the wicked who were seeking death, the final plague of hail in the fifty pound variety begins to fall and they are granted the deaths they seek. Accompanied with the first world-wide earthquake plus 10 on the Richter scale, islands moved out of the sea, coastlines fall into it. In short, nothing survives this final global ending event except Satan. The world will lie dormant and destroyed completely for the next 1000 years. Satan will be bound here for a 1000 year “time-out”. He will be alone with no-one to tempt chained to the desolation he is responsible for.

But for those who have experienced the transforming power of Christ on our lives; for those who have remained steadfast to His word and have not yielded or compromised with evil for the sake of preservation of their earthly existence – this will be the day we have waited long for. This will be the final end to our earthly existence. From this point forward, our nature, our bodies, and our very lives will return to the perfection God intended. From this point forward, our point of view, will be radically altered. But there is more still to come …