Heaven Bound? Not so fast...

Heaven? One of my friends said,"everybody wants to go the Heaven, but no one wants to die." That made me think about John 17:15 where Jesus says, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." The Lord's prayer: "...thy Kingdom come thy will be done on EARTH as it is in heaven..." If you pray like this you are actually praying for heaven to come to earth. I used to say things like, "I'm a stranger passing through this land, heaven is my home!", but according to the Psalms heaven is not man's home, earth is. Psalm 115:16, "The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to man."

I know it sounds good to escape this treacherous world for a better place, but let us carefully examine what the bible really says. No crying in heaven? Really? That's not what John saw. Revelation 6:9-11:

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?11 And white robes were given unto every one of them;and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, shall be fulfilled.

Wait a minute! Why would people who are in heaven have anything to complain about? Shouldn't they be enjoying themselves? Or maybe those people know the whole story and are anxious because they know that heaven is not their home. Maybe before they died they read Revelation 21:3 which talks about the new heaven and a new earth and it says, "...the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them..." Notice it says, "He will live with them" and not "they will live with Him". This is actually the fulfillment of the Lord's prayer, "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." Ironically, some of us pray every night for heaven to come to earth and then we wake up, dread going to work, and then pray to go to Heaven.

New flash! In the words of P.Diddy(que the music), "we aint' go-in nowhere!" That's right unpack your bags. If you die and you are in right-standing with God, your spirit will go to heaven temporarily but your body will someday be resurrected and the new earth will be your final resting place. So for that matter, the earth was never meant to be empty. "...He is God, He did not create the earth to be empty, but to be inhabited(Isaiah 45:18). All of this information is in the Bible that you read at least every Sunday so please don't be upset with me. If anything, I'd say take it up with Jesus. He prayed for you to stay, you pray to leave; which prayer do you think will be answered?

Please sign-up to follow this blog @ http://timothy-kennedy.blogspot.com/...Stay tuned tomorrow for a discussion on what Jesus instructed us to do instead of being preoccupied with heaven. We will also talk about why we are not necessarily living in the last days...peace.

"Stand to reverence the reading of the Word of the Lord!"

Random question perhaps but what's up with notion that you are reverencing God when you stand for the reading of His word? I mean a know it's a gesture and a symbol of respect, but symbols and gestures are supposed to reflect the actual condition of the heart towards a thing. So in this case, standing for the reading of the word and yet not obeying the word wouldn't exactly qualify as reverence. Better yet standing for the "reading" of the word, but never actually reading the word on your own is more like hypocrisy than it is reverence. Now I am not opposed to standing for the reading of the word of the Lord when I am asked, but that gesture is more like reverence to the request of the speaker. The truth is that standing when you read the word is a preference whether it's your own, or whether it's requested of you. Reverence is just too tall an order to be accomplished by something as inconsequential as standing. True reverence to the word of God can only be shown through our obedience to it. In John 14:15 Jesus says to his disciples, "If you love(or reverence) me you will obey what I command"...and the irony is that the disciples were probably sitting down.

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1st Blog

This blog will be about any and everything. I believe I have an interesting perspective and so does anyone who sees life through the purpose and original intention filter. In order to draw an audience I suppose I will need some provocative and thought-provoking content. For the record, what exactly qualifies as "thought-provoking"? I think I have a general understanding of what people mean when they label content "thought-provoking", but just what exactly are those people doing before they read that they need to be provoked into thinking mode. Notice I said "those" people, hence I am not talking about you(lol). I guess what people really mean is that they're looking for something to stimulate new thoughts in the mind- something that is worth the exercise that is reading.

Well for that matter there is nothing more thought-provoking than purpose. The purposes of our universe, the purposes our planet, the purposes of you and I...what are they? Does anyone really know? Does it even matter? This is truly interesting because everyone of us is functioning in a vocation either because we believe we are meant to be there or we aren't quite sure where we're supposed to be. Many of us haven't even got around to that question and yet time goes on. The fact is that out all of the created species in this world the question of purpose lies only in the heart of humanity. Animals seem to instinctively know where they are supposed to be and seem to be doing exactly what they are supposed to do. Humans? Not so much... Ironically, the only time we see animals out of place or malfunctioning is when there is human interference...not that there is anything wrong with the zoo, circus, aquarium, or even having a tiger(potential death) as a pet but, you get my point. Ultimately purpose is central to humanity and every single dilemma that exists in this world, because if you don't know your purpose you will abnormally use yourself and others.

Does this qualify as thought-provoking?

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