Here’s a lovely song by my favourite Gospel singer, the brilliant Don Francisco. No prizes for guessing what it’s about š
In beginning was the Word And He spoke and made the world Then He filled the sky with light And He saw that it was good
Land and sea then living things Teemed and swarmed and multiplied And all of life lived as it should And God said that it was good
Yes He said that it was good Bird and beast and rock and wood Let this truth be understood All the world He made is good
Man and woman stood serene Walked with God in gardens green God blessed all His hands had made And called it beautiful and good
Yes He said that it was good Bird and beast and rock and wood Let this truth be understood All the world He made is good
(Instrumental)
Sit very still and look around See the colors, hear the sounds Let all His love come shining through ‘Cause your Father made it all for you
And He said that it was good Bird and beast and rock and wood Let this truth be understood All the world He made is good
And He said that it was good Bird and beast and rock and wood Let this truth be understood All the world He made is good
(Extended instrumental outro)
So much of Christian theology explains the state of the world – the disasters, the poverty, the cruelty of man and nature – as being because the world is somehow ‘bad’. And that the ‘badness’ is explained because of humanity’s ‘Fall’ in the Garden of Eden. The thing is, for me, the Eden story is part of the Jewish creation myth that was never intended to be read as actual history – and I don’t believe that the world is bad like that theology asserts. Yes, that’s going to annoy the Biblical literalists, but that’s not my problem. The part I do believe is that, because God is good (and in Him there is no darkness [evil]) (1Jn1:5), then I believe He created the world as good as well – in Genesis 1:31 it says that ‘God saw all that He had made, and it was very good’. And I believe it is still very good.
Without going into detail about why bad things happen (I do examine these ideas a little in this article about ‘Life’s Big Questions’), I also think that the first and the last books of the Bible contain two symmetrical ideas.
Let me explain. In Genesis 1:31,Ā we saw that ‘God saw…that…it was very good’. In Revelation 15, there is a great crowd in Heaven who can all see the great things God has done, and how He has worked things out according to His purposes. All things have come to their conclusion, and the huge and mighty wisdom of God, through the ages of history, has been revealed. Here’s what they sing:
“And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,
āGreat and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.ā (Rev 15:3-4)
As I have previously written in this article, they can see all of History in its vast sweep and scale, with all its hatred and horror, with all its triumph and joy, and still they sing that song. They see how everything has worked out for good for those who love God and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) – and that His righteous acts have been revealed.
So, bringing these two symmetrical threads together – Yes, the World is Good, and Yes, somehow God works His purposes out despite – and through – all the bad things that happen. The world was good in the beginning, and somehow, because God is working His purposes out, the world is good now as well.
Ok, this might all seem a bit nebulous in the light of international bad things that happen like tsunamis, famines, ISIS and Donald Trump’s presidency. And it is indeed a kind of Rabbinic teaching concept, where opposite views are held in tension in order to find the truth somewhere in between. But taking the two arguments from Genesis and Revelation together, we can see that actually things are good, God is (somehow) working His purposes out, and it will all fall into place – and make sense – in the end. What a day that will be!
Right, I have thrown a pile of ideas at you, none of which probably makes any coherent sense – but that means it’s now time to go and meditate on it. Think about it, let the Spirit guide you into all truth (Jn 16:13). If what I’ve written helps, great; if not, just discard it and enjoy the music š
I chose the header image because it is a combination of a cloud-covered Earth, an eclipsed Sun with the ‘diamond ring’ phenomenon and with the Moon’s shadow projected onto the cloudscape, and the backdrop of our own Milky Way galaxy behind. Even the huge scale of the objects represented here is miniscule compared with the beyond-incomprehensible size of the Cosmos. All the world indeed is good. And God is bigger than all that and yet He – the Creator of the Universe – chooses to live in us. How awesome is that?!
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” – John 8:36 (KJV)
About three years ago, I returned to Church life, willingly, and at the direct request of Father God. I say ‘willingly’, because it marked the end of fifteen years of hardly being able to set foot in a church building, and at the same time learning how to live free from deadly church doctrines, rules and expectations. I’d been ‘detoxed’ over that time; I’d learned my freedom. And, you know what, even after I’d gone back into Church, God never once told me that it was time for the freedom to end. (There’s a little more detail on this in my Testimony)
And now I live in that freedom. Freedom from the power of sin, freedomĀ from the fear of death, freedom from being tied to others’ opinions, freedom from having to strive to please God, freedom to be who I am, free in fact to live life to the full with complete freedom from any kind of fear.
This sort of lifestyle is described really well in Romans 6:6-14, especially in The Message translation/paraphrase:
“Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable lifeāno longer at sinās every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christās sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. Thatās what Jesus did.
“That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Donāt give it the time of day. Donāt even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-timeāremember, youāve been raised from the dead!āinto Godās way of doing things. Sin canāt tell you how to live. After all, youāre not living under that old tyranny any longer. Youāre living in the freedom of God.”
– Romans 6:6-14 Message
I love that. Never again will death have the last word. Never indeed! Jesus’s Resurrection shows that God was declaring the rule of Death, in terms of its power to destroy and separate forever, was over. In Isaiah 25:6-9, written about 600 years before the death of Jesus of Nazareth, this prophecy is recorded:
On this mountain* the Lord Almighty will prepare Ā Ā Ā Ā a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wineā Ā Ā Ā Ā the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy Ā Ā Ā Ā the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; Ā Ā Ā he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears Ā Ā Ā Ā from all faces; he will remove his peopleās disgrace Ā Ā Ā Ā from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.
Ā In that day they will say,
āSurely this is our God; Ā Ā Ā Ā we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; Ā Ā Ā Ā let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.ā
– Isaiah 25:6-9
*(‘On this mountain’ referring to the hill of Golgotha in Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified)
I mean, how awesome is that? That 600 years before the death of Christ, the prophecy is that death shall be defeated; that victory was the victory of Christ over death on the hill of Golgotha.
Is it any wonder, then, that I marvel at the immensity of the salvation (the Greek word for this is sÅzÅ, meaning being ‘made whole’) that is offered us in Christ. I wrote about this some time ago but that article still stands. The whole salvation story and the truth of it is starkly real in this age of wishy-washy beliefs, rubbish television programs, terribly incompetent Governments and the like.
This salvation – meaning, as we said above, ‘wholeness’, represents the only real hope for us both personally and as a civilization. But because it is based on the solidity of God and the removal of the world’s main weapon – fear – it alone has the power to change lives and make a real difference to real people today. We are ‘saved’ – sÅzÅ’d – to be free. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1) – not to struggle and try, but to rest in His finished work. It is finished! (Jn 19:30)
So remember – if it doesn’t look like freedom – then it isn’t the Gospel!
I leave you with the amazing words penned by Charles Wesley in 1738, from his hymn ‘And Can it Be‘:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature’s night Thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke, the dungeon flamed with light! My chains fell off, my heart was free I rose, went forth and followed Thee!
Not that this has happened to me, but imagine you are a Christian parent (or parents) and one of your children tells you that they are of an ‘alternative’ sexuality. That is, they are gay, Lesbian, bisexual, transexual, queer/questioning or Intersex.
For some Christian parents, this would be a non-issue. For me, that would indeed be the case. But for others, whose deeply-held beliefs tell them that this is simply wrong, wrong, wrong, what do they do? I really feel for these people. On the one hand, their parental instinct is telling them to simply love and accept their child; on the other, their beliefs, church or maybe friends/family are, well, at least making it difficult for them to come around to their new knowledge.
In this beautifully-written piece, Susan Cottrell, herself the mother of five children, two of whom are part of the LGBTQI ‘community’, gives her perspective on this important matter. If you are in this kind of ‘situation’, it is well worth reading. Susan has ‘walked the walk’; in my book, that gives her more than the right to ‘talk the talk’. Click the image below to go to the article:
My regular readers will most likely know my stance on the eternal conscious torment model of Hell. That is the model that everyone who doesn’t decide to believe in Jesus in this life will spend eternity in agonising torment. And also, according to certain Christians, so will those people like me who claim that there is no such place š
Well, I don’t believe in that model at all. While my Hell Resource Page describes my beliefs as they were at the time of writing, I have developed my Hell ideas since then and have become even more convinced that Hell as portrayed by the Christian church does not exist. And key to this transformation of ideas has been the input from various groups I am a member of on Facebook; people who are free to discuss ideas and bat concepts back and forth between them.
One major contributor in these groups is Lee O’Hare, an American gentleman who leads a church in a coffee shop on Sundays. Here, then, is Lee speaking to his group on the subject of Hell, and why he thinks it is a flawed concept.
One thing that’s is so great about this talk, as well as it being a superb exposition anyway, is that so many people are discovering the same things at the same time. Lee and I both think that Hell is a besmirching of our Father’s name; that anyone could believe, much less propagate, the idea that the loving Father God, who is just like Jesus (Heb 1:3) is ok with torturing the majority of humanity in a roaring furnace for ever and ever and ever. No, just no. So, here’s Lee talking on that subject.
The talk is 52 minutes long, but it’s well worth listening to if you have the time. Listen with an open mind and feel your spirit lift š
Here’s a beautiful piece by Nathan Smith; rather than give it a long introduction, I’ll just hand over to Nathan and the introduction he gave it in our Facebook group:
” “Itās no longer simply a question of āwhy would we go back,ā more like āhow would we even go back?ā How would we trade a paradigm of mercy and grace for a black and white world of āus and them?ā How would we darken our eyes to the fiery beauty of creation?”
I call this one “Where Else Would We Go?” It’s a reflection for the wanderers and misfits.
Love to you all, it is journeying with you all that inspired this piece.”
Out here so far from home, the fire of Pentecostal fervor and the build-and-crash of revival music I wonder, would I ever go back? Would I ever return to what Jonathan Martin calls the āChrist haunted landscapeā of my upbringing? When so much has shifted mentally and theologically, I wonder if I would still find a place of comfort in the religion of my past.
The path I think a lot of us wanderers and misfits have taken is not a breakaway from one set of theological precepts to another. Itās not like we just simply traded conservative theology for progressive theology. What I mean to say is, itās not a shift that happens solely in the mind.
Thereās this moment, and I think a lot of my fellow wanderers will know what Iām talking about, this moment where itās like you wake up to the beauty of the world and see God in everyone. The blinders come off and you no longer see sinner and saint, believer and unbeliever. Instead you see the real suffering and struggle and the inherent beauty of all creation. Thatās more than just a change in beliefs, thatās a paradigm shift.
I think itās the difficulty so many of us have in setting foot in church again. Before we would have felt right at home and at comfort in our well-worn pews. Now, we approach church with a sense of hopeful caution. We know what we want to find inside those doors but weāre not taking any chances either. And can you blame us? When the whole world has turned to fire in front of our eyes, when mercy has lit this thing ablaze, how do we sit in pews and talk about the dreaded āthem?ā Not to say that many of us wonāt darken the doors of a church again, we will. And weāll muster every ounce of hope to do so.
Itās no longer simply a question of āwhy would we go back,ā more like āhow would we even go back?ā How would we trade a paradigm of mercy and grace for a black and white world of āus and them?ā How would we darken our eyes to the fiery beauty of creation? Thereās no change in beliefs sufficient to do the task. What has happened has happened in our hearts, in the core of who we are.
Iām reminded of the words of Peter to Jesus, āLord, where else would we go? You have the words of life.ā Once youāve tasted of the āwords of lifeā I think itās near impossible to go back. The words of life arenāt doctrinal precepts or rigid beliefs. Rather itās a melting of heart-walls, a return to the childlike state which views all the world as beautiful and all her inhabitants as sacred.
And the words of life arenāt found in doctrinal confessions or in lofty tomes;
They are eaten in times of desperation.
They are seen in mountain top experiences of joy.
They are touched in the humble moments of friendship.
The words of life are found when and where it matters most: when life gets shitty, and when life gets intimateāāāthat is, when life gets sacred. Thereās no doctrine sufficient to express the pain in a loss loved one, or in the birth of a long-awaited child. Doctrine just wonāt do. But beauty will. Mercy will.
The words of life allow us to see all the world as sacred, all moments as consecrated. All food as blessed, all people as loved. And the words of life teach us to bless all things. We canāt get to this place by simply shifting beliefs around or doctrine-delving in the latest theological fad. We must wander with Jesus awhile, allow him to change us, to teach us, to transfigure us.
Where else would we go?
Jesus has the words of life.
Abba has the words of life.
Amen.
Here’s the link to the original piece. Click here or on the image below.
‘Controlled Flight Into Terrain’ (or CFIT) is the number-one cause of fatal aircraft accidents in the UK. That is to say, the pilot has not lost control of his aircraft – he is still completely in control – but the aeroplane is destroyed by a collision with the ground. How can this happen? Far and away the most common cause of this sort of accident is where the Pilot flies into a cloud* at low level, and that cloud just happens to have a solid centre. So, something like a mountain, a hill, a radio mast, that sort of thing. Pilots have a name for that sort of cloud; we call it ‘cumulogranite’. Invariably, the aeroplane loses such an argument, but, of course, the simple answer is to avoid flying into cloud at all, never mind at low level. My Pilot’s licence does not allow me to fly in cloud anyway, so it’s a no-brainer.
So, for me, a CFIT accident should never happen.
Or so you would have thought.
Let me tell you the brief story of a rare ‘hairy moment’ I managed to contrive a bit back, that could have become a CFIT but for my decisive action.
While flying one of the Piper Tomahawks from my local Flying Club in Devon, I decided to perform a ‘Practice Forced Landing’, or ‘PFL’ for short. As described in this article, it’s where you pretend that the hamster has died** and the engine has therefore failed, so you need to practice the unpowered glide down towards a suitable field. But you don’t actually land there, as you would do in a real emergency; no, once you think you’d have made it, you open the throttle again and climb away.
Now, I have only been flying from this airfield in Devon for a year or so. For the previous few years, I have been flying over the gently rolling, undulating Cornish countryside. The Devon countryside is similar, but we do have at least one giant ridge, called Haldon Hill, which rises several hundred feet out of the western side of the Exe Valley. Oh and there’s the huge, high plateau of Dartmoor as well, but that doesn’t figure in this story. Most of the time, though, Haldon Hill is not a problem because we fly at 2,000 feet or higher, so the Hill is well below us.
But for a PFL, by definition, you do go down low and fly pretty close to the ground. You are pretending you’re going to land, after all.***
So, on this particular occasion, I ‘failed’ the engine at 2,000ft at a randomly-chosen time and chose a field a few miles west of Starcross on the Exe estuary (‘randomly-chosen time’ because you don’t look for a nice big field and then fail the engine once you’ve found one; in real life, the engine would likely fail with little or no warning and you wouldn’t have that luxury). A nicely-sized triangular field on a slight uphill slope (this helps slow the plane down once you’ve landed) and directly into wind, and with a farm next to it. In real life that would have been the perfect place to land. And, also noting that Haldon Hill was well clear a good few miles away to the west so that should be fine; there was plenty of space for me to climb away so I don’t hit it.
So, I conducted the PFL drill and got down to about 300ft. I wanted to go a little lower than normal – usually no lower than 500ft above ground level – to see what an open field looks like from a lower level. Having decided that, had that been a real forced landing, I would have survived, I selected full power and began the climb away. Looking up from the field, well I can’t say I went into a panic because I don’t do that, but right there in front of me, less than a mile away, was a bloody great big treeline – a ridge with loads of trees on it – and I was looking up at it! The top of the treeline was a good 250ft above me…
You see, because I had descended for the PFL from above the height of Haldon Hill, I had failed to see the treeline in the foreground and a mile beyond ‘my’ field, because it was well below Haldon Hill. It was down in the ‘ground clutter’, as it were, and as I was concentrating on the field and the landing procedure, I hadn’t seen the ridge under my ‘exit route’. I found out a few days later – by finding ‘my’ field on a map – that the treeline is a medium-sized copse near a wood called ‘Mamhead Big Wood’. Maybe it was called ‘Mamhead Little Copse’ or something. Well, whatever it was called, it certainly looked like it was living up to the larger name right now, Mamhead Big Wood or not, and not only that but it was above me! and it was also getting closer. With less than a mile to run, low on airspeed because I was just recovering from the descent and getting rid of the drag flaps and also nose-up as well (which reduces the acceleration), and not yet at best climb speed, I knew I was going to have to do something pretty decisive. Low on airspeed, altitude and ideas, this is a situation we Pilots call ‘tumbleweed’ for obvious reasons. No way was I going to gain sufficient height to clear ‘Mamhead Little (but getting bigger) Copse’ in the time available.
Adopting the only course left open to me, I decided to turn gently right – again, in a climb, your turning is restricted too because turning uses ‘lift’ from the wings, and when you are climbing you are using most of that already – so the gentle right turn brought me northwards and parallel to the ridgeline. With that terrain feature now to my left, I now had plenty more space to complete the recovery manoeuvre. CFIT avoided.
Map showing my PFL flightpath. Dotted line shows the gliding descent, ‘my’ target field is the triangular one marked with the blue ‘X’, and the climbout escape path is shown as a curving solid line. Arrowheads give direction of travel. ‘Mamhead Big Wood’ visible to the left of the map, but actually it is on the reverse slope into the next valley; the problem wood was that smaller copse to the east. Look at those contour lines; each one of those is 5 metres more altitude…but also see how the land drops away again west of the ridge through Mamhead Big Wood. Scale: Large blue grid square – 1km
So, I learned from this that I should only really do a PFL in properly rolling countryside; I know now that the area between the Exe estuary and Haldon Hill is a tricky complex of ridgelines, slopes and forests which is not good terrain in which to practice forced landings. I have no doubt I would get a plane down in that area safely should the real thing happen, but for practice? Not good, because the exit routes are potentially not good. When you’re trained to do PFLs, you’re trained to look out for certain types of field: fairly level or with a slight upslope; big enough to land in with enough space to stop before you hit the far hedge; into wind and hopefully not into the sun (but the wind direction is more important); hopefully a reasonably smooth and firm ground surface; preferably near to civilization so you can get a cup of tea while you wait for the AA to come out; and no obstructions like trees or power lines on the approach path. But nobody ever mentioned the escape routes. The vast majority of the time, you are going to be doing these sorts of things for practice only, so it’s not just a matter of ‘would I have got into the selected field safely’, but also ‘can I get out again once I have completed the PFL exercise?
The day a Pilot stops learning is the day he should stop flying. I’m glad to say that I learned from this event; I got in some good practical and real-time decision-making, and I lived to tell the tale. I wouldn’t say that the event was necessarily dangerous, but it was what we might call ‘marginal’; not much room for error and very much dependent on my skill, experience and knowledge of my aircraft in order to resolve it satisfactorily.
I’m probably going to drive over and have a closer look at ‘Mamhead Big Wood’ and ‘Mamhead Little Copse’ sometime. I would say that it’s in order to see what it looks like from the ground, but I would think that I can make a pretty-well informed guess about that already, don’t you? š
*The number two cause of fatal aircraft accidents is ‘loss of control in IMC’ (‘IMC’ meaning ‘Instrument Meteorological Conditions’ or, again, cloud), that is, the Pilot gets into cloud, gets disorientated, and loses control of the aircraft. Again, very rare and easily avoided (because we’re not supposed to fly into cloud for that very reason), but still worth bearing in mind.
**Everyone knows that light aeroplane engines are powered by a hamster running on a little wheel, under the engine cowling; this makes the propeller go round very fast.
***People sometimes ask me “How low can you fly in those aeroplanes of yours? How close to the ground can you go?” To which, of course, the only correct answer is, “All the way down. It’s called “landing” ‘ š
Header image shows Piper PA-38 Tomahawk G-RVRR, callsign ‘Romeo-Romeo’, one of the two Tomahawks I fly.
Jesus doesn’t give us many clues about how to become a Christian.
He only says what happens when we believe in Him – ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life;‘ – Jn 3:36. How does this happen?
And that is the point at which I will hand over to Harvey, the writer of the blog ‘The Evangelical Liberal‘, with his article ‘The Penitent Thief – a Good Friday Reflection’:
The Penitent Thief ā a Good FridayĀ reflection
A friend recentlyĀ asked me who is the one person other than Jesus who we know to be in heaven, if we believe the gospel record. There may be otherĀ possible answers, but perhaps the clearestĀ is the PenitentĀ thief, or the Thief on the Cross ā the one to whom Jesus says ātoday you will be with me in Paradiseā.
This story is one of the only obvious moments of light, hope and redemption within the unremitting horrors and darkness of the Good Friday narrative.
Eleventh-hour conversion
The PenitentĀ thief is only featured in one gospel account (Lukeās). In Matthewās and Markās versionsĀ both criminals crucified alongside Jesus hurl insults at him. Make of that what you will, but itās still I think a very important vignette.
Itās surely the most dramatic (and perhaps the only) story of 11th-hour conversion in the pages of Scripture; very much aĀ ādeathbedā repentance. Not the ideal way we might want someoneĀ to come to faith, perhaps, nor the ideal setting, but one that can give hope and encouragement to pretty much anyone. Few of us can be in a worse place than that crucified thief, yet he is given the cast-iron guarantee of salvation that few others can boast.
Tradition calls him the āpenitentā thief, but we do not actually see himĀ repenting in the way that most Christians would understand the term. There is a form of confession but no apology, no āsinnerās prayerā. All he does is acknowledge that he has committed a crime and therefore deserves the punishment heās receiving; and he then asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his Kingdom. Thatās all ā and it appears to be enough.
Radically simple
Itās wonderful how simple and uncomplicated it all is. The man does not do anything, nor need to do anything, except simply recognise Jesus at least partly for who he is ā the true King, of the true Kingdom ā and ask Jesus simply to ārememberā him. (Not āsaveā him, but simply keep him inĀ mind, be aware of him, not forget about him.) Thereās no begging or bargaining; itās just a very simpleĀ and humble request.
If we take this story seriously, it radically simplifies the requirements of Christianity ā at least the entry requirements. We donāt have to be baptised to be saved. We donāt have to go to church, understand difficult theological doctrines, memoriseĀ scripture, speak in tongues or go on mission trips to be able to call ourselves Christians. We just need to turn to Jesus. All these others can be good and helpful things, and if we lead long Christian lives we may well end up doing many of them. But they are not required in order for us to beĀ part of the Kingdom, for us to be remembered by Jesus and be with him in Paradise.
So, Jesus doesn’t say you need to believe in the Bible. (There weren’t any Bibles at the time of the early church anyway (like in the Acts of the Apostles, one of the books of the Bible) because the Bible hadn’t been written yet. And in any case most people couldn’t read…and yet there were thousands of believers.)
He doesn’t say you need to believe in Hell
He doesn’t say you have to not be gay
He doesn’t say you have to Repent!! to believe in Him.
He doesn’t say you have to believe in sin, in judgement, in Communion, in the Pope, in anything like that.
He doesn’t even say you need to believe in God.
All of these things, with the possible exception of the last one (and only then because a belief in Jesus implies a belief in the One Who sent Him – God) are things that you can consider, you can think about, you can adopt as doctrine if you really must. but they are not essential, according to the story we have looked at.
Amongst believers, there is a phrase ‘coming to Christ’. You simply come to Him, just as you are, without having to worry about fear of rejection (Jn 6:37 ESV). Just as the Penitent Thief came to Christ and just simply asked Him to ‘Remember me when you come into your Kingdom’, that’s all there is to it. All you need to do is to come to Him. Even if you don’t yet feel that you ‘believe’, don’t worry; that can follow later. The first step is simply to come to Him.
Jesus will meet you exactly where you’re ‘at’. It’s different for everyone because everyone’s point of need is different, and everyone’s experience is different. You don’t have to pray a set, special prayer. You don’t have to follow a formula. There is no set list of things you have to do or say or be. You can do any of these things if you want to*, but either way the most important thing is simply to come to Jesus.
You might feel that nothing has happened. That was how I felt. Or you might get a huge flood of joy, tears, relief, love, whatever. You will receive exactly what you need. Don’t be afraid of it being a ‘counterfeit experience’. You have come to Jesus. You might have asked Him to make Himself real to you. You might have asked Him to come into your life. Whatever approach you have used, don’t let anyone convince you that it’s not real – not even your own feelings. You will begin to see and feel in your own time. As Jesus says in Luke 11:11-13, āWhich of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!ā So, if you have come to Jesus, He will do what He promised. He will give you everything you need to live for Him, all the resources of Heaven, and He will come and live in your life by His Holy Spirit.
Wow!
*Personally, I remember the day I prayed and asked Jesus to come in to my life, and for me, that prayer was important as it marked a definite time where I had made the decision to follow Him. But you don’t have to do that.
“But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” – Psalm 3:3 (KJV)
I have had a new breakthrough in the area of worship.
Since losing my lovely wife Fiona to cancer last October, my soul should have been downcast (Ps 42:5). But, as I have said in a previous post, yes I have been grieving, and yes there have been heartbreak and tears, but my soul is not downcast within me. That which is ‘me’, my personality, my ‘self’, has not been destroyed. It is well with my soul! My worship life; my closeness to the God of all Comfort, has kept me afloat, kept me sane, kept me in joy. Not that I can claim credit for that; I have to say that the worship is my natural response to His closeness; the initiative, as it were, lies entirely with Him. It’s my choice to worship in response to that love, of course, but how can I not? Being surrounded and, yes, almost ‘padded’ by that Love, what other response can I possibly make?
As a worship leader from the Charismatic renewal era, I have led/sung (and still do!) certain types of song hundreds of times: those that express a longing, a hunger for God, for His presence. I suppose they are, for me, an expression of the longing in my heart for more of Him. Because, for me, He is the Centre of everything, I just want more and more. And yet He’s always right there, all the time. I suppose I just mean with those songs that I never want that Presence to leave me. It’s quite interesting in that God is so ‘present’ (although I know He’s ‘everywhere’) in the places where it appears that there is no God. So, in tragedy, suffering and heartache of all kinds, He’s right there. What we need to do is to develop a consciousness, an awareness, of that Presence.
A couple of months ago, someone at our Lifegroup (housegroup) said, “How can you lead worship like that after all you’ve been through?” And the answer is, really, “how can I not?” Worshipping Jesus has kept my focus on Him and that’s been my lifesaver. And so, like in the story I linked to above (here it is again), I have had those heavenly worship times where everything just fades into the background in the Light of His Presence. The troubles and grief are still there, but they are put into the correct perspective by the worship; I am reminded again of the primacy of Jesus and the sovereignty of God; I know He is in charge and this is just so profound.
But now, the worship seems to be taking a new course. Rather than simply affirming the worship of Heaven in my life, and showing me in some small way what Fiona is experiencing in the Presence of God, He’s now letting me see more and more of who I am in Him, Who He is to me, what He’s done for me and what I have in Him. 2Pet1:3 says, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness”. And He has. He gives power for life, He gives freedom from sin, He gives the peace that passes all understanding. He’s lifted my head, and He continues to do so. All the things that happen in my life now, I face from a place of complete rest and confidence in Him. This is the state of Grace; where God’s undeserved favour (in that I have had to do nothing in order to ‘gain’ or ‘earn’ it) is present in blessing and Divine Presence.
And He is the one Who is indeed the Lifter of my head. When the grief and the sadness make me want to drop my head, chin to my chest, He’s the One Who lifts it back up again, to let me gaze on His Face. He’s the One Who lifts my aching heart and fills it with such indescribable joy, bubbling over; the reassurance of His Presence. And this is all so real to me; it hardly seems fair that one man should be given such blessing. As a friend of mine said a few years ago, we had such a life-changing experience of God in our early Christian lives that for Fiona and I, this was the norm. When worship was happening, we were in the thick of it. The Presence of God is so real, so tangible, it’s simply amazing.
And so I want to share this brilliant Terry MacAlmon song, My Glory and the Lifter of My Head. Especially magnificent in this song is the spine-tingling solo by Liz Gustafson, “When the terror of the enemy | Seems to rise all around me | Still I, I will not be afraid | Oh, For there is One greater | He’s my shield and my defender | And He will stand beside me till that day!”
For the reader who does not yet know what it feels like to be in God’s Presence, may I encourage you to ask Him to make Himself real to you today. Be a part of this. Enter into this joy that is just so available to you. Let this song minister the truth of the reality of God into your spirit; let Him breathe his new life into you.
Here we go, then. This is a really great song. Be blessed as you listen!
Youāre my glory And the lifter of my head Youāre my glory And the lifter of my head For Thou, O Lord, are a shield for me My glory and the lifter of my head
When the terror of the enemy Seems to rise all around me Still I, I will not be afraid Oh, For there is One greater He’s my shield and my defender And He will stand beside me till that day
In the light of my former post in this series, in which C. S. Lewis describes ‘Sarah Smith from Golders Green’, a saintly lady in Heaven who had amongst her train of followers many animals that she had loved and befriended during her life – and who reminded me of Fiona – I thought it time to address the problem: Do animals go to Heaven? The Bible is silent on this issue, so what does happen to them? And my daughter lost her pet rat this month, when he lost his battle with a probable brain tumour. So, for us, it’s a pretty topical subject.
And, as we are an animal-loving family, I thought it might be an idea to discuss on here whether indeed animals will join us in Heaven, especially those who are ouranimals.
Why is this post part of my ‘Fiona’ series? Well, a few weeks before my wife Fiona died (can’t believe it’s six months ago today that we lost her), she had a real-life, solid waking vision of what was awaiting her when she passed away. I will not go into details, but I will say that the vision involved animals. Part of Fiona’s reward includes animals, very much like ‘Sarah Smith from Golders Greenā. And Fiona loved her animals, and would it not be fitting if her animals were waiting to welcome her when she arrived there? Because I am indeed convinced that she went to be with her animals as well as with her Lord, I have today published this blog post. In this piece, then, I examine ideas about our animals being with us – and with Fiona right now – in Heaven.*
This is the majestic and regal Bruno, our third Shepherd, in 2008. He passed away a year later, in his prime, at the early age of 8, due to spinal problems.
Certainly the Bible mentions animals in the Kingdom. Things like, ‘the lion shall lie down with the lamb’ and similar passages speaking of the peace of the Kingdom to come. And, while the Bible is very quiet on the ‘eternal fate’ of animals, there is the sense from reading the Bible that hints that, as humans are redeemed, so Creation as a whole is redeemed too on the back of our redemption. It’s all a bit mysterious, is that, but the concept certainly is there. Like in Romans 8:19, “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” It’s as if, once the saints come into their inheritance, Creation follows suit. I think Heaven is going to be full of animals!
In my research for this piece, I found many websites that kind-of abstract the whole thing about animals in Heaven. They talk about animals not being able to ‘accept Christ’; not being able to ‘understand salvation’, all that kind of thing. They miss out entirely the idea I mentioned above, that creation longs for the sons of God to be revealed. For the time when everything will be made right. In a sense, we understand salvation on their behalf, and it is through our life in Christ that they too are ‘saved’. Clearly, many of these writers have never known the love and affection of a devoted family pet, or the close relationship of a working animal with its master. Like a draft horse, a Police dog, or similar. When Jesus said that ‘he who loses his life will keep it for life eternal’, there is a hint there that everything you are, everything that formed a part of you, everything that your animals were to you, everything good about your life here on Earth, all that will somehow be caught up and included in your life in Heaven. And so it is my belief that this fully includes your animals. The animals to whom you show love and self-giving, with whom you form a loving relationship.
Bruno
Also, the great Christian thinker and writer I mentioned above, C. S. Lewis, wrote that in his opinion, the ‘higher’ animals, such as dogs, cats and horses, almost seemed to have a ‘soul’. And therefore, at least some of the animal kingdom would be in Heaven. They have characters; they have personalities. They have intelligence, they have emotions and feelings. Sammy, my daughter’s rat, had a bright, sunny personality; he could do tricks, he knew his name and would come when called. He loved my daughter and you could tell that he knew she loved him. There was real intelligence and, yes,Ā consciousness there. In other words, these animals are, in their own way, persons, and as such, that is what is redeemed. And the redemption idea was what Lewis was strongly hinting at in the ‘Sarah Smith’ passage quoted in my article. Zeus, my German Shepherd dog (he’s the dog in the header picture) is a person – there’s no doubt about it. Those who would sneer at this and accuse me of anthropomorphising Zeus’s behaviour (superimposing human traits onto an animal) don’t have a clue; they have never met him. He’s a person all right. My daughter, in fact, pointed out today that actually animals are, in a sense, far more Godly than we are because they love unconditionally, and forgive easily. And that they don’t have the same ‘walls’ that we have, whether self-erected or not. I read once – it may have been in Lewis, it may not – that animals live actually in the constant, conscious awareness of God. That’s something we cannot know, of course, but I do think there’s something in that; this is maybe why dogs and other pets are used as therapy visitors in hospitals, where they have such marked positive effects on the patients they visit.
And there’s more, this time from personal experience. I remember when we lost our first German Shepherd dog, Jasper, in 1994 (as mentioned in this piece). Fiona had a vision of him jumping up into Jesus’s lap and licking His face. (How Jasper got away with that, I don’t know; we never used to let him lick our faces!). As with all of the visions Fiona had, it was very real, almost like a solid vision, a ‘real dream’. But she saw it, all right. I saw her burst into tears of joy when she saw that picture…it wasn’t until after the meeting we were in that she told me what she’d seen. I’m convinced it was a real God-given vision, by its fruits of peace, joy and hope that it produced. We will see Jasper in Heaven. Well, we have already seen Jasper in Heaven!
This next bit is relevant, so bear with me! Christians speak about ‘Judgement Day’. For most, this is a terrifying concept where everyone’s secrets are laid bare so that God can ‘smite’ (whatever that means!) people for what they’ve done. Let me encourage you, then, for in fact the very opposite is true. God’s justice is, actually, everything being in right relationship, in its right place, ‘The way things should be’, we could say. And God’s judgement is not a heavenly court-room where we are all tried ‘for our sins’; instead, judgement is the means by which God’s justice is achieved; the process of righting all wrongs so that His justice comes into full fruition. That’s what Judgement and Justice mean.
God’s justice and His judgement are therefore restorational concepts, not punitive ones.
Like all Kingdom concepts, it is happening in the here and now wherever Christ’s followers bring Him into a situation. It is also what will happen at the ‘Last Judgement’ and at that point it will be brought to its completion. This is why I look forward to that judgement; I look forward to everything being restored to its proper order and in its proper place, with everyone in right relationship with God and with others. I look forward to everything that was ever wrong being made right, and every injustice set straight. I look forward to everything being ‘the way that it should be’. When viewed in that manner, ‘Judgement’ and ‘Justice’ take on a whole different meaning from that of the angry god taking out his ‘wrath’ on people, to one of a loving God who wants nothing less than peace and wholeness for everything He has made.
Why is this relevant to whether or not animals will be in Heaven? Well, you see, death is one of those things that is ‘wrong’; that needs to be put right. It’s just so hurtful, so damaging and so painful. And permanent too.
Except that it isn’t. Because Jesus rose from the dead, literally came back to life after being dead for days, it shows that in fact God has declared death defeated. Death no longer has the permanence it once had. ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory!’ (1Cor15:54 and Isa 25:7-8). And so death itself will be one of those ‘wrong’ things that will be done away with, for ever. So there is nothing to prevent all that our animals were to us, all the love and affection they gave and received, from being given back to us in the next life. Death is defeated; why should this not extend to our animals? God is just that kind of God, Who would do really ace stuff like that! š
And so, if all that was ever wrong is put right, surely then the ‘wrong’, undeserved, sometimes untimely deaths of all these pets will be put right too. My daughter’s pet rat Sammy was only sixteen months old when he died. Rats are supposed to live for two to three years. It’s all wrong. But that too will be put right.
A very poorly Sammy, a few hours before we had to have him put to sleep.
What about animals that were not our pets? How about animals bred entirely for use as food? What about bugs, bacteria and whatnot? Where is the line drawn? Well, we can’t know for certain, of course. For an animal that does not mean all that much to us personally, like, say, a wild animal; an animal that does not ‘belong’ to someone as such; such an animal might be in Heaven, but not actually linked with anyone. I really don’t have any ideas on that, I’m afraid.
But let’s stick to what I do believe. I personally think that people’s pets or working animals – shall we say, ‘conscious’ animals with which we formed a mutually-beneficial relationship – I firmly believe that animals like those will be raised up with us as part of our inheritance as saints.
And finally, there’s this vitally important point too: God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Rev 21:4). This means that everything that ever upset you, everything that ever hurt you, everything will be made right and things will be just as if the bad stuff never happened!I have written about this before, and the same principle applies here. This is part of God’s restorative justice. It’s part of what will happen. The Bible is full of God’s promises to restore – “I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and will rebuild them as they were at first.” – (Jer 33:7); “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” – (Joel 2:25). Granted, many of these prophecies were regarding the restoration of Jerusalem after the exile in Babylon, but the heart of God is still to restore. Restoring: putting things back where they belong; giving them back; restoring relationship – including those with our beloved pets.
So, animals in Heaven. Why not? Given the generous and, moreover, restoring nature of God, and that He loves to surprise us and bless us with every good thing, and given that Heaven will be better than anything and everything we could ever have dreamed, why not?
Do our pets go to Heaven?
Yes! They do!!
*And part of the reason for this post is that, in this series, I explore various ideas about the ‘afterlife’ and the grieving process of losing a loved one. Animals too are ‘loved ones’, so I felt for both reasons, and more, it was fitting to examine this topic as part of this series š
The header picture shows my magnificent German Shepherd dog, Zeus. He’s a gentle giant whom we adopted at fifteen months old. When we got him he was a bit of a sad case who was terrified of men (we think he’d been abused by his previous owner), he hadn’t been socialised with other dogs, and he was generally not well-trained at all. After four to six months with us, he’d turned into the most placid, gentle, obedient dog you could wish for. He now gathers a fan club wherever he goes; everyone wants to stroke him and have pictures taken with him (especially Japanese people for some reason). He’s 9 now and weighs in at 55kg, by far the biggest German Shepherd we have owned, even bigger than Bruno. Here he is again, on the beach at Porthcothan in north Cornwall (and the photo is clickable to magnify it):
[Edit] ā A shortened version of this post was also published on the ‘Unfundamentalist Christians’ blog on the Patheos website. Click here to see it on that site.
[Edit 24th June 2017] – yesterday, our beloved Zeusy went to be with his Mum. He died completely unexpectedly; in the morning he was welcoming visitors and doing his walk and stuff, and within twelve hours he was gone. Naturally we are heartbroken but, as I am sure you’ve worked out by now, we believe that he’s gone to be with Jesus and his Mum. I look forward to the exuberant welcome he will give me when it’s my turn…
