Sunday 7 August 2011

Reading Up On Heaven


Reading Randy Alcorn's book on Heaven has been really interesting and insightful. You can start out slightly worried that you're becoming 'too spiritually minded to be of any earthly good' - a mildly perplexing phrase you hear bounced around the place; which I'm pretty sure is just plain wrong. The more I think about that phrase the more I am convinced the opposite is true. One can be too earthly minded to be of any spiritual good. That, I think, is by far the greater danger.

The more I think and learn about Heaven, the more I want to prepare for it. The more I contemplate how awesome the New Earth is going to be, the more willing I feel to lose my life in this one. Most of us are more than willing to endure a bit of pain and hardship if in the end there is a massive reward. What if the reward was far bigger and more amazing than you ever imagined? What if this life was, in reality, unbelievable short compared to the bigger picture?

Jesus taught us to lay up treasure in Heaven. He is into health and wealth, life, joy, peace and happiness... and many other good things we long for. He's just into the eternal sort. Everything in this life comes with a sell-by date and eventually withers away.

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"Christian, meditate on heaven, it will help thee to press on, and forget the toil of the way. This vale of tears is but the pathway to the better country: this world of woe is but the stepping-stone to a world of bliss. And, after death, what cometh? What wonder-world will open upon our astonished sight?"

Charles Spurgeon.

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"The man who is about to set sail for Australia or New Zealand as a settler, is naturally anxious to know something about his future home, its climate, its employment, its inhabitants, its ways, its customs. All these are subjects of deep interest to him. You are leaving the land of your nativity, you are going to spend the rest of your life in a new hemisphere. It would be strange indeed if you did not desire information about your new abode. Now surely, if we hope to dwell for ever in that "better country, even a heavenly one," we ought to seek all the knowledge we can get about it. Before we got to our eternal home we should try to become acquainted with it."

From Heaven by Randy Alcorn, page 5.
Original quote: J. C. Ryle, Heaven

The Confession of Evil

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works"

Augustine of Hippo

Training the Flesh

"As Bonhoeffer says, 'If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free reign to the desires of the flesh ... we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ.""

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 165
Original quote: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (London: SCM Press, 1964)

Richard Foster on the Discipline of Service

From 'Celebration of Discipline':

"Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial."
p158

"Of all the classical Spiritual Disciplines, service is the most conductive to the growth of humility ... Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition."
p161

"True service rests contented in hiddenness. It does not fear the lights and blare of attention, but it does not seek them either. Since it is living out of a new Centre of reference, the divine nod of approval is completely sufficient."
p160

One reality must be clearly understood in the life of service. The very fact that we are finite means that to say 'yes' to one task of necessity means saying 'no' to other tasks.
p172

Saturday 6 August 2011

Forever Deepening

"Theologian Sam Storms writes, "We will constantly be more amazed with God, more in love with God, and thus ever more relishing his presence and our relationship with him. Our experience of God will never reach its consummation. We will never finally arrive, as if upon reaching a peak we discover there is nothing beyond. Our experience of God will never become stale. It will deepen and develop, intensify and amplify, unfold and increase, broaden and balloon.""

Heaven, Randy Alcorn, page 179
Original quote: Sam Storms, "Joys Eternal Increase".

Settled Happiness

"C. S. Lewis said "The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God.""

Heaven, Randy Alcorn, page 166
Original quote: C. S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain, 115.