More thoughts on Heaven

One of the most common questions by Christians or seekers is "What will we do in heaven?" Play harps and sing all day?

Alcorn uses many, many references for this next group of ideas about what we will do in heaven.

Good works, run the universe, serve, continue using our unique giftings, create culture, sing, dance, tell stories, make music, laugh, and play are all strongly supported in scripture. The following aren't scriptural, but Alcorn argues, "Why couldn't these be possible?": sports, craftsmanship, trade, business, technology, machinery, travel, space travel, and time travel.

The main reason Alcorn says "YES!" to all of these possibilities is that the New Earth will be similar to the current (old) earth...only BETTER. He says that perhaps what we do on earth will only be like a hint or a flavor of the real thing that God has created in Heaven. His logic is "Why would Heaven be less complex and dynamic than earth?"

Thought Three

Here are simply some of my favorite quotes from the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn.

"If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present worlds were just those who thought most of the next." -C.S. Lewis

"Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in'; aim at earth and you will get neither." -C.S. Lewis

"In heaven we'll have all the time together we want. Right now there's kingdom work to be done." -a missionary commenting on whether or not she missed her family in America

"Rather than ignore our imagination, I believe we should fuel it with scripture." -Randy Alcorn

"God is creator, and he created us to be creators. Hence, what we create is an extension of God's creation. He accepts, embraces, and delights in our creation." -Randy Alcorn

"I believe our resurrection bodies will have adrenaline and the ability to feel. We take pleasure in exhilarating experiences not because of sin but because God wired us this way." -Randy Alcorn

Idea #2 from Heaven

This next point has tons of scriptural references in the book...but I'm just going to summarize the concept. It's pretty mind-boggling.

When we die, we do go to heaven. But our existence in heaven won't be the same for eternity. Alcorn differentiates between these two experiences by calling our first state the "Intermediate Heaven" and the second state as the "New Earth." Once Christ returns, the dead in Christ will be given our resurrection bodies, and thus will begin our final eternal state on the New Earth. Heaven will literally come to earth with the return of Christ, and we will inhabit the earth in our immortal resurrected bodies for eternity.

A life-changing book

Every few years I'll come across a book that shakes up the way I look at the world. As a teenager, it was Thoreau's Walden; his thoughts on spirituality and nature became mine. Having fully rejected the Christian faith, More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell forced me to reevaluate the historical accuracy of the Bible. Of course, the Bible is the best book ever written, so I can't leave that one off my list. (Pretty good author there. Maybe you've heard of him? God!) Then in college, Abba's Child by Brennan Manning taught me so much about God's unconditional love for broken people. As a young man, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge showed me what it means to be a man and gave me permission to live dangerously for God.

I think I've come across another book like this--Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I'm going to give you some of my favorite thoughts and quotes from it until you're fully convinced of its awesomeness and you go out and read it.

Idea #1: The idea of paradise when used in reference to heaven is closely reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Alister McGrath said, "The idea of a walled garden...was the most powerful symbol of paradise available to the human imagination, mingling the images of the beauty of nature with the orderliness of human construction."

This is shocking to me because I never figured that human beings had anything to do with participating in either the Garden of Eden or heaven. But God has allowed us to participate with him in his work on earth, so why wouldn't he also make heaven a place where we contribute as well? Everything we do (on earth or later in heaven) comes from the abilities God gave us, but the result is something that has both our fingerprints on it as well as his. Paradise will be beautiful for its natural beauty and God's children's creativity.

Everything is amazing and no one is happy

We went to the National Youth Workers Convention in Cincinatti, Ohio, two weeks ago, and so Heather and I are still digesting a lot of what we learned there. It's kind of an interesting time delay, though, as we have all of these vivid ideas about youth ministry but we're about 8 more months away from being back with the youth in Africa that we work with. I'm sharing some of the best thoughts over on my "Quote of the Day" blog, but I wanted to share this clip that one of our speakers used at the conference. His topic was youth and technology, and you'll see how that fits in to comedian Louis C. K.'s interview with Conan O'Brien.

I have two disclaimers though. One, he uses some foul language. Two, this generation is not the worst generation ever, as Louis states.

We were on Jay Leno last night

While Jay might not have invited us as special guests on the show (yet), we are working our way up there. During his "Headlines" segment, he had the blurb from our local newspaper about our "Africa Night" event we did on October 18.

Re-defining a "Missionary Dinner"

My mom and step-dad called us at 10:15 completely flabbergasted. They told me the story about how we were on Jay Leno. I think I laughed for about an hour straight. I had no idea that our headline would be on there. I have no idea who submitted it to the show. Of course, the show didn't contact (nor will they) about having our picture and headline on the show. It was just one of those sudden crazy things.

We called friends and family on the West Coast immediately to let them know to tune in when it aired in their time zone. The Doughertys burned a copy to DVD for us, and David Wright captured it and put in on YouTube.

They say everyone has 15 minutes of fame, and this definitely counts towards ours. Fourteen minutes and forty seconds still awaiting us in our future.

Quote of the Day available again

I took advantage of my uncle's high speed Internet this week and did two months worth of quotes.

Quote of the Day over on my Word Press blog

Web page update

Lots of new picture albums. Ministry updates. Working links. I hope you can cancel your plans for the next two hours. This internet invention is addicting.

http://murphy.kijabe.org/Murphys_Website/Welcome.html