Heaven Is for Real

My heart yearns for heaven even more since I read Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back.  Without being prompted, 3-year-old Colton told his parents about his "visit to heaven" when he nearly died from a ruptured appendix.  He shared Biblical truths that he couldn't have known unless God had shown him. 
This simple, childlike account reminds me of Jesus' faithful love and favor towards children.  Jesus openly and willingly invites them to come to Him.  He values them more than anyone else does.

Back in Bible times (Matthew 21), the chief priests were furious that the children were shouting praise to Jesus.  “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked.

“Yes,” replied Jesus, “Have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants You, Lord, have called forth Your praise?”
In another passage, Matthew 11, Jesus praises His Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, and openly and joyfully acknowledges that God has hidden things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.

God revealed His truths to children in the past and He still does today.  "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."  (Hebrews 13:8)

Note: In Heaven Is for Real is a picture of Jesus painted by a young girl, Akiane.  Akiane has amazing Spirit-led insights in her art and poetry. 

Akiane: Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry

How has this book impacted your life?

Can We Give Up All for Jesus?

Last week I heard in a song, "I would give everything for You."  At least that's what I think I heard, but I can't seem to find the song.  Anyway, it really got me to thinking.

Am I willing to give up everything for Jesus?  No matter what the cost?  Am I willing to follow Jesus with my WHOLE heart - with body, mind, and soul?  Or is it just in words?  If it comes to the real test, would I deny Jesus just to keep what I have or to keep from being persecuted?

I'm afraid.  I don't trust myself.  In my self-centeredness, I often choose myself above Jesus.  I pray that God will give me a Christ-centered heart, that I will focus on Him and follow Him no matter what.  I pray that God will give me the strength to live and to write more earnestly for Jesus, not worrying about someone being upset with me or not agreeing with me. 

It's only through Jesus alone that I can give up everything.  Jesus Who HAS given up everything for me, even His own life!  Through His sacrifice I hope I may learn more and more to truly give up my entire being and all that I have for Him.

I have not yet figured out what song I heard, but in the process of searching I found Love Song by Third Day. 


Love Song - Third Day from Kevin Porter on Vimeo.

By Our Love

Cute Colors

“And they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love...” Walking hand in hand down the hallways of a nursing home where I worked, a mentally-challenged choir from Hope Haven trilled like a robin heralding spring.

A lonely tendril in my aching heart reached out to lap up the life in those words, but it could not burst through a topsoil of hell and damnation.

“We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand...”  No, no, no!  Do not listen to this!  This song is not “the Truth” as our church teaches.  I may not walk hand in hand with such false assurance.  As the fires of hell nipped at my heels, I frantically slipped on my stoic mask and judgmental cloak and snuffed out the wistful longing to know what comfort these people had that was so foreign to me.  And the chains that kept me from the love of Jesus tightened their grip.

Sexual abuse under the name of God threw away the keys to the chains, and I lost even more of who I am made to be in Christ Jesus.  I was branded as the whore who beguiled the “poor servant of God.”  No one ever asked me what really happened, and I was doomed to shame. 

Many years later, my husband and I finally left that church.  A “friend” warned me, “Just THINK of what you’re doing to your children,” she said.  She and many others treated us as if we and our children were now lost because we had left the only church who preached “the truth.”  In their eyes, we were headed to hell. 

Praise God!  My life is in the hands of God, not that of people.  I will never be lost to Jesus.  He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. What greater love is there than that He would sacrifice His own life to save you and me?  In fact, every word Jesus says and every act He performs is bursting with unselfish love and boundless compassion. 

I still hear those precious voices singing a melody of love.  I thank God that He planted that seed in my memory and that today those words have blossomed in my heart.  I wish I could go back to that time and hold hands with them and sing praises with them at the top of my voice.

Struggles Teach Us to Fly

No one is without struggles in this life, and sometimes it can get so wearisome that we wish we could just find an easy way out.  But easy isn't better.

I struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and I often get bronchial infections.  Last week it was to the point that I ended up in the ER with a breathing treatment and IV fluids and meds.  I had picked up a stomach and a bronchial virus.  I felt so sick I asked Jesus to take me.  I was so weary of coughing and chest aches and pains.

One morning I read a devotion from Streams in the Desert.  A man observe an emperor moth emerge from its funnel-shaped cocoon.  As the moth struggled to squeeze through the small opening, the man felt sorry for it and thought he'd make it easier for the moth.  With a scissors he clipped the sides of the opening allowing the moth to slip out more easily.  The moth walked around with a big body and shriveled up wings, was never able to fly, and eventually died.

For that poor moth, easier was not better.  The tight squeeze pressures the fluid into a moth's wings.  Without that struggle, the moth will never have the privilege of flying.

What an encouraging analogy from God's creation!  The struggles in our lives are just tight squeezes that will prepare our wings.  The greater the struggle, the greater the energy in our wings to fly for Jesus. 

Jesus, there are so many in this world who struggle.  You know the plights of each and every person.  You know their weariness.  Strengthen each and every one with the energy juice of Your love so they can better fly for You and Your honor in this life.  All things are possible through You!  Thank You, Jesus, for your indescribable suffering in our place.