Spoken 7: The End

When my Bible study students and I talk about Heaven, we're talking about what is Real.  And we are desperate for it.  My very favorite question is "What will we not have in Heaven?"

extra chromosomes

shots

medical tests

glasses

hearing aids

wheel chairs

books that remind us who we are and what we're doing

brain injuries

minds that don't know things

speech problems

walking devices

extra voices stuck in the brain

I long to see my guys wholly whole.  To have them be able to communicate what's in their hearts.  To have the mental and psychiatric healing.  To be able to hear and see and understand.

My students... most do not have long life expectancies.   Many, when they start going down hill, they seem to go full speed.  It's heart breaking.  I keep notes about what people say and do and what hymns they like.  I keep them in my "funeral" file.  I hate it.

But, I also love it.  I love the anticipation that so many of them have - especially the older ones.  Especially the ones who have experienced trauma and remember what it was like before.  This earth hasn't lived up to it's promises.  And they are ready for Eternity.

So, yah... we talk about death a lot.  And we talk about Heaven a lot, too.

But we were talking about something way different when J. piped up to ask, "Why did Jesus have to die for me?" This was pretty advanced for J.'s normal comments;  where did it come from in his heart?  Caught off guard, I stumbled around.

Because.  That was the plan.  He knew you would not be good enough to get to heaven.  So, Jesus died to buy your ticket because God loves you.  

It's perhaps the most well known verse of the New Testament, probably the whole Bible.   Maybe we love it because it says so much one little sentence.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

I don't really get it.  I mean - I get it - but I don't GET it.  I can explain the doctrine of it, but how that Truth functions in my emotions, sins, and worship.  There's some disconnect.  And maybe that's what I long for most in Heaven... that all the things that block me from knowing it will be gone.  I can't wait until my sin is finished.  I am desperate to be so amazed by Salvation, that the things of this world do not attract me.  I want to be content when I have and when I have not.  And I want to be confident in the power of the Holy Spirit instead of my own awesomeness.  And when I hear Jesus say that It Is Finished, I am longing even more for the moment when I will be free from this entanglement of the things that distract me.

With my students, I pray that God will grow beautiful fruit from their dependence on Him because of their disabilities.  And me, too.  Me, too.

And I'm going to pray that for you, right now, as well.  Just hat your singleness, though it might feel like a handicap or a disability... or even a punishment or the anti-love of God, it will be over.  Your heart ache.  The lonely nights.  The broken heart.  Those will be gone in Eternity.

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