Posts tagged with ‘heaven’

15 Items

A Brewed Awakening: Talking with God

by Steve

“I don’t wonder anymore what I’ll tell God when I go to heaven when we sit in the chairs under the tree, outside the city……..I’ll tell these things to God, and he’ll laugh, I think and he’ll remind me of the parts I forgot, the parts that were his favorite. We’ll sit and remember my […]

A Brewed Awakening: A Taste of Heaven on Earth

by Steve

“I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.”  ― A.W. Tozer Do you expect and look forward to new experience, new challenges and new friendships in […]

Living in Pursuit of God’s Heart

by Steve

In the movie “The Bucket List” Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are two of the most unlikeliest of characters who are thrown together because of they share a common enemy, DEATH. They have both been diagnosed with cancer. They now come face to face with Ultimate Truth, perhaps for the first time, they are mortal. […]

Are Your Ready for Community

by Steve

“To make the improving of our own character our central aim is hardly the highest kind of goodness. True goodness forgets itself and goes out to do the right thing for no other reason than that it is right.” Lesslie Newbigin   Though we are rooted in the here and now, we are always looking […]

Invited: a message on Heaven

by Steve

His Italian mother named him after the gospel writer, Mark in the hopes that he too would tell the gospel truth. It is ironic that, later when he wrote a bestselling book on his world travels, cynics nicknamed it Il Milione: .The Book of a Million Lies.. And Mark, whose mother hoped would grow up […]

The Pursuit of Heaven part 4

by Steve

Heaven is not a place you go to, It is a place you grow to. Heaven is the gift of what you pursue in life. If your life is dominated by the pursuit of self-indulgent pleasure and privilege you will be rewarded by living in a world of hoarding and scarcity. If you live by giving and […]

Splendor of Heaven part 3

by Steve

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.”  Colossians 3:1-2 Have you ever been invited to a wedding celebration? Often there is […]

Heaven 2: The Journey Home

by Steve

Are you looking forward to heaven and what God has planned or is it all simply wishful thinking? Does Heaven fill you heart with wonder, excitement and enthusiasm or fear and loathing? In the midst of pain, trials and difficulties, why should we be talking about Heavent? When Jesus knew he was facing the cross and that […]

What is Heaven? part 1

by Steve

Why are we not satisfied with this world as it is? Why do we long for beauty, love and fulfillment? Why is pain, suffering and death so revolting and something we fight against? John Lennon in his song “Imagine” suggests we ignore the reality of Heaven and the after life in favor a more immediate […]

A Friend in Heaven

by Steve

A man and his best friend were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that his friend walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came […]

Imagine Heaven

by Steve

The crisis of hope that afflicts the church today is a crisis of imagination. Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft writes:   Medieval imagery (which is almost totally biblical imagery) of light, jewels, stars, candles, trumpets, and angels no longer fits our ranch-style, supermarket world. Pathetic modern substitutes of fluffy clouds, sexless cherubs, harps and metal halos […]

Heavenly Banquet

by Steve

Imagine the stories that we’ll hear. And all the questions that shall finally have answers. “What were you thinking when you drove the old Ford out on the ice?” “Did you hear that Betty and Dan got back together? But of course you did-you were probably involved in that, weren’t you?” “How come you never […]

And They Lived Happily Ever After…

by Steve

 And they lived happily ever after. Stop for just a moment, and let it be true. They lived happily ever after.  These may be the most beautiful and haunting words in the entire library of mankind. Why does the end of a great story leave us with a lump in our throats and an ache […]

Sermon Slides: The Importance of Hell

by Steve

Audio Podcast available here Based on Luke 16:19-31   Worship 04.17.11 Myths 6 Hell 2 Blessing of the Palms What is hell, then? It is God actively giving us up to what we have freely chosen-to go our own way, be our own “the master of our fate, the captain of our soul,” to get […]

What Happens at Death?

by Steve

Into the Warm Arms of God by Max Lucado What about my loved ones who have died? Where are they now? In the time between our death and Christ’s return, what happens? Scripture is surprisingly quiet about this phase of our lives. When speaking about the period between the death of the body and the […]