Posted on

Traveling to Heaven

Entering heaven
Heaven is Real
I’ve always wanted to travel, especially to Ireland. My ancestors were probably from Ireland (and Scotland and England.) I’d love to visit the countryside where my ancestors lived and listen to the people speak the Irish language, Gaelic, or English with an Irish brogue.


I have never been to Heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma. I was born in Oklahoma and have lived here all my life. Some people think Oklahoma is cowboys and Indians, oil derricks, flat plains, and the Dust Bowl, but Oklahoma around Vinita is hills and valleys, Grand Lake, the tail end of the Ozarks out of Missouri and Arkansas, lush hay fields, and cattle ranches.
I learned about heaven in Sunday school. I was fascinated with heaven. Streets of gold and the gates of pearl. Angels and cherubim are all around the throne of God, crying “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” A great multitude of people, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, surrounding the throne are clothed in white robes worshiping the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The river of life flows out of the throne of God and on the banks of the river are trees with leaves for healing of the nations.
One day, like Paul, I will say, “The time of my departure is at hand.” II Timothy 4:6. New King James Version. I will step out of Oklahoma and step into Heaven.  “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
 
Heaven is as real as Ireland and Oklahoma.
Posted on

Meaningful Truth

Why didn’t I pay attention when my uncles and Daddy talked about World War II?  When the men gathered at our house to visit, the ladies were visiting or cooking, and the kids were playing outside or washing dishes and doing chores. Everyone had his or her own interest and mine was either reading or playing the piano. Guns, war, and history meant nothing to me.

I’ll never forget in the mid-1980s when my husband and Dad were talking about WWII and they mentioned the bombing of Nagasaki. I must have looked puzzled when I asked, “Where is Nagasaki?” because they both looked at me astonished. Dad said, “Surely you don’t mean you’ve never heard of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan?” I said, “I’ve heard of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.” And he then told me about the bombing of Nagasaki following the bombing of Hiroshima, ending the war in the Pacific.

The only excuse I have is that no one grabbed my attention in a way that was meaningful to me, so whatever I was supposed to learn went right over my head.

This reminds me of the stories of people who have attended Sunday School and church all their lives and never learned the spiritual truth of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps they heard the story of Jesus and considered it a nice story, but never recognized their need of a savior. Many people think that they haven’t done anything so terribly wrong in their life, so there’s nothing from which to be saved. Maybe she has been a very good person, and had given to charities. Perhaps he had always paid his bills and been a friend to all.

However in Romans 3: 23 in The Living Bible, “Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal yet now God declares us “not guilty” of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins.”

Yes, everyone is a sinner, but everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.

 

Posted on

Jonah and Las Vegas

Imagine God telling you to go to Las Vegas and walk the streets telling the people, “In forty days, Las Vegas will be overthrown.”

Imagine walking down the sidewalk in front of the MGM Grand Hotel where the golden lion sits guarding the entrance to the great casino, wearing nasty clothes, and smelling like fish guts and seawater, the results of being swallowed by the great fish. You walk through the crowd of well-dressed business people, flashy dressed gamblers, prostitutes, and comfortably-dressed tourists.

“In forty days, Las Vegas will be overthrown.” You don’t tell them to repent. In fact, you would
rather they didn’t.

God sent Jonah to Las Vegas. Well, okay then, Nineveh. The people of Nineveh believed Jonah and God. The king of Nineveh proclaimed a fast and ordered the people to cry out to God, so that God would change His mind and not destroy the city.

Sure enough, it worked. God made a liar out of Jonah. God forgave them. Jonah knew God would do that, because God is kind and compassionate, full of mercy and it made Jonah mad when God didn’t destroy them.

Jonah said, “This is exactly what I thought you’d do, Lord. . . For I knew you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to get angry, and full of kindness; I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people.” Jonah 4:2  Living Bible.

In Jonah’s great desire to see the people of Nineveh wiped off the face of the earth, he had forgotten that God had specifically called Israel to be a light, to reveal God to the world. Jonah’s problem was that he was patriotic; he believed God’s mercy and love was exclusive to the country of Israel. Jonah had forgotten that the people of Nineveh were people just like him, in need of God’s mercy and grace.

God loved the people of Nineveh and He loves the people of Las Vegas, too, just like He loved Jonah and He loves us all.

Posted on

GET UP AND TRY AGAIN



My little daughter who is grown was one of those kids who walked all around the coffee table when she was learning to walk, touching as she went, never letting go. She could walk all over the house touching the walls or chairs, and if there wasn’t something to touch, she got down and crawled. She was over a year old when she finally let go and walked across the room.

Once at church, my best friend’s first-born son started walking across the aisle to his daddy–at 7 months old! I could barely believe my own eyes. “Edna,” I said, “that baby is not old enough to walk. How did you teach him to walk so young?” She said, “I tie a harness around him and walk him around as I do housework.” The harness held him up and he had no idea he was supposed to fall.

I read recently that babies fall at least 2000 times, while learning to walk. I probably fell more times than that when I was learning to walk. I was born with twisted feet that Mother held in her hands and prayed over. She was overprotective of me because her two-room house had concrete floors. Every time I fell she was afraid I would “bust my little ol’ noggin’.”

The Lord knows our weaknesses. He knows we were born with “twisted feet” and the tendency to fall or sin. It’s because of our sin nature that we inherited from our ancestor Adam. The only way for us to “learn to walk” was to be born again, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.
 
God sent Jesus to straighten out the crooked paths and make the way straight. Jesus walks with us, with a little harness around our heart, propping us up as we walk.

The Bible says in Psalms 37:24, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His Hand” and in Micah 7:8, “When I fall, I will arise.” Every person faces struggles in their lives, but the winner is the one who gets back up after falling. The last man standing is the winner, so don’t give up.

The key to the victorious life is getting back up again.
Posted on

Come Boldly

“Wasn’t this the holiest place, where only the high priest was allowed to enter? How could we enter it so casually?” The tourist thought to himself as he entered the Holy Place in the  tabernacle in southern Israel. Of course, it was only a replica, built without the gold or acacia wood, but in every other way just like the tabernacle for which God gave Moses the plans.

God appeared to Moses and gave him the specific details of every piece of furniture, every wall, every doorway, all designed by God. The complete blueprint was spelled out to Moses.

When God gave Moses the plans for the tabernacle, it was patterned after the tabernacle in heaven. Paul said that perfect tabernacle was not made with hands, so it must be the one in heaven that God made.

The outer part of the tabernacle was the Holy Place, where the priests sacrificed animals every day to God. Inside the inner tent was the Holy of Holies, where the high priest entered once a year to offer blood as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole nation. Hebrews says that Jesus Christ is our high priest forever. After He was crucified and rose again, He entered the Holy of Holies in heaven one time, taking His own blood to place on the heavenly ark of the covenant, as the final sacrifice for all sins.

Like the tourist who described how he felt when he walked into the Holy of Holies in the replica model of the Tabernacle, we feel uncomfortable when we think of coming into the throne room of God, but since Jesus Christ offered His own blood once and for all, now we have access to God Himself, the Creator of the Universe and God Almighty.

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16 NKJV.

The throne of grace is God’s throne in the Holy of Holies and Jesus has invited us to come, and come boldly.

Lavon Hightower Lewis

 

 

Posted on

O Come Let Us Adore Him

 

Our family tradition revolved around the music of the Christmas. We sang it at church, at school in the special Christmas program, and all around the house.

I took piano lessons so I learned to play all the Christmas carols. I was in chorus in school so I learned to sing all the Christmas carols, at least the alto part. Of course, to learn the alto you have to hear and learn the melody of the song.

The songs made up of sounds and words are the songs of the birth of Christ. They were written by men, empowered by the Holy Spirit, for people to sing.

We sing, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright, ….Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born.”  What a proclamation of the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

We sing, “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” meaning Glory to God in the highest, and we are, in fact, giving God the highest praise.

We sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King,” and we are joining with the angels who sang to the shepherds on the hillside that night.

“O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, Born the King of Angels! O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”

Let me translate that into Okie English from Old English.

O come, all ye faithful. That means “Everyone who is full of faith in Christ Jesus, you come to Bethlehem. Come and see Him, the one who was born as the King of angels.”

O come, let us adore Him, let us love Him, let us sing give the glory and honor and praise to Christ the Lord, Savior, King of kings and Lord of lords, the majestic God of all creation.

O come, let us adore Him, let us praise Him, let us magnify His Holy Name, Jesus Christ the Lord.