"Completed Beauty" (Isaiah 65:17-25)

Sunday, November 17, 2019

          “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” says the Lord in Isaiah 65.  A new heaven?  A new, better, cleaner, earth that’s more just?  Who wouldn’t want that?

          I’ll tell you who would want and want it right now: you, the people of our church family.  Last week, the sermon was about resurrection.  At the back door as people were leaving, one worshiper stopped to tell me there were times she felt “homesick for heaven.”  Anyone who’s read Philippians knows Paul felt the same way.  Then midweek, I was talking with another church member who said to me, “I would love it if Jesus came, the sooner, the better.”

          Life can be a real struggle.  That’s why so many of us long to be close to Jesus and relieved of the daily pressures that make it hard for us to thrive.  God’s Isaiah 65 promise to make all things new in some ways is a return to the ideal of Eden before Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  New creation is this fallen world remade, made new.

          In his book Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey paints a picture of struggle as he observes giant leatherback turtles laying their eggs on the beach in Costa Rica. 

The turtle reached down in the soft sand, one muscular flipper at a time, to scoop out and then fling the sand behind her.  As she worked her way down, each scoop required more and more effort.  The sand got wet and heavy, and she had to fling it above the rim of the hole she was digging.  Eventually she reached a depth of three feet, her body fully submerged in the sand.  Now, each fling of sand thrust her whole body to the side, and despite her best efforts much of the sand still fell back in the trench.  She scooped it up again and flung it toward the surface. 

Finally, after an hour’s hard labor, the trench satisfied her and she began to drop shiny white eggs the size of billiard balls. 

Her task completed, the leatherback clambered slowly out of the nest and began a forty-five minute process of filling it in with sand.  … Exhausted, she lumbered off, dragging herself toward the sea.  She would never see the result of her efforts.  When the 60 or so eggs hatch, the baby turtles burrow to the surface and make a mad dash to the sea, with only a third surviving the onslaught of coyotes, raccoons, and sea gulls.[i]

          Predators.  Two steps back for every three steps forward.  Limited success.  Fruit for which we labor but never actually get to touch or taste.  Talking about turtles, we could be talking about the myriad speedbumps and roadblocks that make life hard.  Should life be this hard? 

          Life is hard because of sin – my sins, yours; the sins of other people; our ancestors’ sins.  Humanity’s collective cruelty, jealousy, selfishness, and greed shows up in your life and mine in small ways, in our little cruelties, jealousies, selfish words and thoughts, and greedy deeds.  God can see that life is tough and promises something better for us. 

          I don’t know if in the new earth God promises giant leatherback turtles will struggle so mightily just to lay eggs.  I don’t know if there will be giant leatherback turtles in the new earth.  I hope there are.  Our daily struggles and pains won’t be a part of the new earth.  Walter Brueggemann writes “this promised action of [God] [in Isaiah 65] is clearly designed to overcome all that is amiss, whether what is amiss is caused by [God’s] anger, by [our disobedience], or other untamed forces of death.”[ii]  This is how God makes things right.

          Imagine the conditions to which God is responding in this vision.  Jerusalem, having been utterly defeated by the Babylonians, was a pile of rubble.  The city walls were torn down, and the temple was burned and smashed; completely destroyed.  Picture a city like Beirut after a bombing campaign or the trash-strewn underbelly of the poorest sections of the world’s most densely populated cities.  To this wretched condition God says, “I am about to create Jerusalem – the city – as a joy, and its people as a delight. … No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress” (Is. 65:18b, 19b).

          Because of disease, poverty, lack of education, and lack of access to healthcare, many places in the world have high infant mortality rates.  This is intolerable and God is more offended and heartsick by this than we are.  So, in the new earth he says, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days” (v.20a).  In fact all babies in new creation grow up healthy and life spans will be long.  “One who dies at a hundred” will be considered a youth.  Recall the crazy old ages of the patriarchs mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis.  Isaiah reaches back to that era. 

          Also think of places and times when people, perhaps indentured servants or coal miners or migrant pickers and farmers, work but see little to no fruit for their labor.  In unjust systems, the wealthy grow fat off the backbreaking labor of powerless peasants.  Not in the new earth.  “They shall build homes and inhabit them.  They shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit.  They shall not build and another inhabit.  They shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (v.21-22).

          The new heaven and new earth is a reversal of the pains plaguing humanity.  God hears every prayer.  Even the natural violence between predators and pray will cease.  “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. …They shall not hurt or destroy on God’s holy mountain” (v.25). 

          Philip Yancey talks about living in Colorado compared to the time he spent living in Chicago.  First he describes his wilderness home where he routinely sees all manner of animals and birds outside his window.  He has a front row seat to the pristine purity of nature.  Then he writes,

In downtown Chicago, my day proceeded very differently.  Most mornings began with a run through the park.  I saw few animals, other than squirrels and pigeons. … I saw instead winos and homeless people sleeping under newspapers and smelly blankets; prostitutes sleeping in doorways next to discarded condoms; well-dressed yuppies standing in neat lines at bus stops; foreign-born nannies pushing the carriages of those yuppies’ children; garbage collectors, janitors, street sweepers, sewer workers, and others who perform the undesirable jobs that keep a city running.[iii]

          Aesthetically, the Colorado wilderness holds more appeal than the grimy inner city streets.  But the image of God is not in the red squirrels, gray foxes, and brown bears Yancey admired from his warm home.  The image of God resides in the yuppies, nannies, prostitutes, and sewer workers.  God created nature’s most spectacular beauty to be enjoyed and admired by each of those millions of city dwellers, his image-bearers. 

          We know that out of His great, grace-filled love for us, God will eventually restore the world.  The wretched underclass will enjoy creation’s splendor.  That new creation will come at the end of history when Jesus returns and we join him in resurrection.  How does God begin now the work of ushering in His eternal kingdom?  God works through His body, the church. 

          We are the tellers of the redemption story - God in human flesh, Jesus; his tragic but necessary death on the cross, and his spring morning victory at the empty tomb; Easter!  We are God’s story-tellers.

          We are the inviters.  In Isaiah 60:3 God declares that the nations will come to Israel’s light.  The world will be drawn to the gathering of the people of God, which in our day is the church.  But for the world to know that God can be worshiped and loved and know, we need to invite. We need to tell God’s story and actively, energetically, invite people to hear our telling of it.

          We are the point of contact where a lost and dying world meets the Savior God.  Jesus’ final command to the disciples and continuing commission to us is “go and tell.”  Obeying this command, we help people see beyond the temporary world as it is to the eternal world of God’s blessing so many are currently unaware of even when they get little glimpses.  We are where the lost world meets the Savior God.

          New Testament scholar N.T. Wright thinks of it this way.  In an attic, a collector finds a faded manuscript of music written for piano.  He contacts a dealer who sees it and then contacts another expert.  They all put their heads together pondering this score, sure that what they’ve found is a previously unknown work by none other than Mozart. 

          How wonderful!  A new work by greatest composer ever.  Yet, as they study it, they realize it seems incomplete.  There are long periods of rest, and it dawns on the collectors and dealers that what they have is indeed by Mozart, but it is written for more than one instrument.  They only have the piano part.  What’s the other instrument or instruments? Cello?  Violin?  Flute?  “If those other parts could be found they would make sense of the incomplete beauty contained in the faded scribble of genius now before them.”[iv]

          When God finishes re-making the world, his earth and his heaven made new and brought together, we, his image bearers, his church, the body of Christ, will become His completed beauty.  Until that day comes, we lean toward it, pray for it, anticipate it, and invite each other and those outside the church to imagine it and find hope in it. 

          Until that day comes, we work for justice and help one another with the struggles of our day.  They are real but so too is God’s promised new creation.  It makes sense that we would long for it.  God placed that longing in us.  That longing drives us to look to God constantly and reflect his hope to the world.

          AMEN

---

[i] P. Yancey (2003).  Rumors of Another World: What on Earth are we Missing?  Zondervan (Grand Rapids), p.47-48.

[ii] W. Brueggemann ((1997).  Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy.  Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.549.

[iii] Yancy, p.53.

[iv] N.T. Wright (2006).  Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense.  HarperOne (New York), p.39-40.

Grounded in Love (Job 1:21; 2:11-13)

            I’m not sure how you’ve been doing, riding out this windy, rainy weather that’s come to us from Hurricane Florence.  As I am writing this, 1:25, Saturday afternoon, we have had power and no problems.  I’ve made trips to Walmart.  It’s been OK.

            I know people in Wilmington and along the coast are significantly affected by floodwaters, wind, and rain.  As of this writing, 7 have died in hurricane-related incidents.   It’s a tragedy.  I have no inspired words to make emotional sense of it.  We believe in God and rely on God, and then a natural disaster comes.  Why?  I don’t have a good answer. 

            One of the people in the Bible frequently referenced in times of catastrophe is Job.  God boasted of Job’s righteousness and Satan challenged God on this.  God allowed Satan to harm Job.  Through weather disasters and military assaults from foreign enemies and accidents, Satan, with God’s permission, was able to kill Job’s children and take all of Job’s things.  A key phrase in that sentence is with God’s permission.

            Why would God let Satan do that?  In the 1000’s of years of Bible students combing through the scriptures, the “why” question has never been sufficiently answered.  But know this.  From Job’s perspective, the issue is with God, not Satan. The book of Job has 42 chapters and Satan is off the scene after chapter 2.  Job’s wife, who lost everything just as Job did, loses faith.  She says to her husband, “Do you … persist in your integrity?  Curse God and die” (2:9).

            Curse God and die.  Someone prays fervently in the days leading up to Hurricane Florence.  He has relatives in Wilmington.  For whatever reason, they don’t evacuate.  They’ve ridden out hurricanes before.  They’ve got things at home they need to protect.  They’ve got a parent in the hospital in Wilmington that cannot be moved and they don’t want to leave dad behind.  It’s doesn’t matter why.  They stay.  And the cousin, who lives here, away from the flooding, away from the danger prays for them.

            Then the hurricane comes, power is knocked out, and the cousin loses touch.  Finally, the dreaded call comes.  The one who stayed died in the flood waters.  Does the cousin who prayed so hard now look to Heaven with heartbroken frustration and curse God?  What words does a pastor offer to soothe the ultimate loss?  I don’t know.

            For his part, Job responded, “”Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Frustrated, Satan asked permission to attack Job’s body.  Job was made deathly ill, breaking out in loathsome boils.

            He professes faith even in the face of terrible loss.  His wife blames God and abandons faith.  Read on through the rest of the book, and Job brings his own complaints to God even as his three friends mercilessly blame him for what’s happened.  He needs comfort, and they weigh him down with bad theology that puts all the responsibility for his plight on his own shoulders.  It would be like saying to the people at the beach, “It’s your fault this hurricane happened.  If you had not sinned, it would never have come.”  Job’s friends relentlessly pound this idea. 

            However, before they get started in their misguided diatribes, look at their action in chapter 2, verse 13.  It says, “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”  Sometimes, that is the only response a pastor or a loving Christian friend has.  Sometimes to be a Christian is to sit with another person in their misery. 

You see someone in a terrible mess.  It doesn’t matter who made the mess.  You see the mess and the person who can’t get out of it.  So, you say, “I love you and God loves you.  I can’t think of how to show that.  I can’t think of what to do.  So, I’m going to sit with you in this mess.”  There comes the time to do the recovery work.  Maybe the building needs to be cleaned.  Maybe the church needs to provide supplies to the family who lost everything.  Maybe the building is so damaged it needs to be leveled.  To save money, some the work can be done by volunteers from the church.  We had a bunch of volunteers from here head to Eastern North Carolina last year to do recovery work.  The time for that comes.  But, sometimes, the only we have to offer is presence.  I don’t know what to do.  But I’ll sit with you because God loves you and I think that’s what God wants me to do.

Philip Yancey has spent his writing career trying to see God in the midst of the world’s greatest pain.  Pain produces fear.  The dire forecast of what kind of damage the hurricane might bring sent people in our area into a mania of worry.  I was in Lowe’s hardware earlier in the week.  They had cases of water bottles.  At that point several stores were completely out.  I grabbed one case, but other people had their carts stacked high with cases.  They had enough water for over a month.  The fear of being out of something drove people crazy.

Don’t get me wrong.  Preparation is important.  Many who decided to ride out the storm regret it now, even if they survived.  We should prepare and heed warnings, like the warning to evacuate, but we do not need to be ruled by fear.  Yancey writes, “The cure to fear is not a change in circumstances, but rather a deep grounding in the love of God.  I ask God to reveal his love to me directly, or through my relationships with those who also know him – a prayer I think God takes delight in answering.”[i]

            A deep grounding in the love of God; is that what allowed Job, at his lowest point, to say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord?”  Was he so grounded in God’s love because he had so much, a big family and great wealth?  If he had no children and was a poor man, would he have said that? 

            Is that deep grounding in the love of God what led the author of the New Testament letter 1 John to write these words in chapter 4?  “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).  That New Testament letter claims that we are able to live in love and show love because God has first loved us (4:19). The ultimate expression of God’s love is the death of His beloved and only son, Jesus, on the cross for our sins.  Jesus is God’s testimony of love.  When it feels as if our own deaths have come upon us, is the love of God that we have in Jesus enough to help us face it?

            What does deep grounding in the love of God look like?

            Often, it looks like people who show God’s love.  It looks like Job’s friends when they sat with him in silence, before they started blaming him.  Just sitting with him, they were God’s presence.  They didn’t heal his painful condition.  They didn’t bring his deceased children back.  But, they communicated that he was not going through this alone. Their presence said to him, “You are beloved.  We will stand by you.”

            Yancey relays a story from Tony Campolo. 

Tony Campolo was going to a funeral home to pay his respects to the family of an acquaintance.  By mistake he ended up in the wrong funeral parlor.  It held the body of an elderly man and his widow was the only mourner present.  She seemed so lonely that Campolo decided to stay with her for the funeral.  He even drove with her to the cemetery.  At the end of the graveside service, as he and the woman were driving away, Campolo finally confessed that he had not known her husband.  “I thought as much, said the widow.  I didn’t recognize you.  But it doesn’t really matter.”  She squeezed his arm so tightly it hurt.  She said, “You’ll never know what this means to me.”[ii] 

            Yancey goes on to say, “No one offers the name of a philosopher when I ask the question, ‘who helped you the most?’  Most often they answer by describing a quiet, unassuming person.  Someone who was there when needed, who listened more than talked, who didn’t keep glancing down at a watch, who hugged and touched and cried.”[iii]  Presence.

            The first time I ever saw my dad cry was when I was about 8 or 9.  We would run out of the house when he got home around 6 PM yelling, “Daddy’s home.”  Well, one day, he didn’t come.  And it got dark out.  This was the late 1970’s, so no cell phones.  We didn’t know where he was.  Mom didn’t know where he was. 

            Finally, after 8PM, we heard the garage door open. I went into the garage to greet him.  He had a strange expression on his face.  I had never seen such a look in his eyes.  There was blood all over his overcoat.  He sputtered out, “I couldn’t help him.  I couldn’t do anything.”  And my dad cried.  I didn’t know what to do.  I had never seen this.

            The story came out.  He was making his daily commute home on I-75 from downtown Detroit to 14 Mile Road where we lived in the small town of Clawson.  He saw someone walking on the Freeway get hit by a tractor trailer.  My dad always carried an old army blanket in his trunk.  He stopped the car by the stricken man, and got that old blanket out.  Stooping by the man whose body been run over by an 18-wheeler.  My dad covered him with the blanket and stayed with him so he wouldn’t die alone. 

            Why was Dad crying?  He was crying God’s tears.  This man was a stranger to my dad.  This man was God’s beloved child and God wept at what happened.  God weeps for those who fall in the hurricane’s path.  God weeps with you when life hits you hard. 

            Grounded in love, my dad was the presence of God for a dying man.  Grounded in love, Job’s friends were the presence of God with him as he suffered.  In the aftermath of the current storm, our church will send people to do whatever kinds of relief efforts and clean-up efforts we can to help.  Going and working is important.  Going with a heart of love to be with people in their distress – that’s living grounded in love.  God’s love for us, demonstrated in the sacrifice of Jesus, expresses itself when we are present with people who need to know they’re not alone. 

            None of these words fix what hurricanes break.  None of these words heal the wounds in your life.  These words insist that God is with us and is with you and will stay with you, no matter what you’re going through.  Because I believe in the goodness of God and because I believe His loves overcomes all that we face in life, this is the best I can offer.   God is with us.  And when we sit with those in pain, God is there.

AMEN

---

[i] P. Yancey (2000), Reaching for the Invisible God, Zondervan (Grand Rapids, MI), p.83.

[ii] P. Yancey (1990), Where is God when it Hurts?, Zondervan (Grand Rapids, MI), p.195.

[iii] Ibid.

Inhabiting Two Worlds (Philippians 3:18-21)

Inhabiting Two Worlds (Philippians 3:18-21)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

“Facebook Live Post” – Sunday we got Snowed Out – 1/8/17

Good Morning.  We here in North Carolina have been totally thrown off by weather that people in Michigan or Wisconsin might describe as a normal January day.  In those Northern states, this is no big deal; some snow, some sleet.  Whatever!  But, for us in the Tar Heel state, everything closes, including church.  The roads are covered and in my neighborhood, kids are sledding down the middle of the street.  Nobody wants to drive out to worship services when temperatures are barely in the 20’s.

I hope you have taken time this morning to pray and worship God.  Our family sang some worship songs and shared Bible readings that are on our minds.  We prayed together.

If we were at HillSong, in the sermon, time, I would continue what I began the year discussing – the quest to see more of God.  As part of my study for these messages that have opened 2017, I have revisited a couple of my favorite Philip Yancey books – Reaching for the Invisible God and Rumors of Another World.  In Rumors, Yancey touches on the notion that we live in two realities – the Heavenly realm inhabited by God and unseen by human eyes, and the earthly realm which we experience everyday with our five senses.  In his treatment of this peculiar dynamic – us living two realities concurrently – he refers to two other authors who also saw things this way: C.S. Lewis and Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine’s great work City of God shows how we are residents of two cities – the one, the city of man, is where find ourselves now.  But in Christ, we are oriented toward something more permanent – the eternal city of God.  I picked up an e-version of City of God on Google play for under $2.  I am just a few pages into the 800-page work, so I will have to report back on that later. 

C.S. Lewis deals with the two worlds with his brilliant creativity in the Chronicles of Narnia series.  In another of his novels, the Great Divorce, Lewis depicts the Heavenly realm as decidedly more real.  The physicality, the vibrancy, and tangibility in the Heavenly realm are all more than we in this earthly realm can tolerate.  However, if we have in our lives grown in our knowledge of God and our relationship with God, then we gradually change.  The theological term is ‘transformation.’  We become prepared to divorce this fallen life and move into eternity – eternity spent in resurrection in God’s presence. 

All three writers – Philip Yancey, C.S. Lewis, and St. Augustine – have helped me understand that what we see around us is not all there is.  The reality I cannot see with my eyes but that God reveals to our spirits is more permanent and real than what I know by sight and sound, taste, touch, and smell.    Another Christian thinker who elaborated on the two levels of living is Biblical author Paul the Apostle.

Paul was a Jew from Tarsus.  He also went by the name Saul.  He was an expert in the scriptures, a Pharisee.  First century Pharisees, one group among many in that era of Judaism, were the ones who preceded the group now known as Rabbis.  Pharisee Paul felt that the new group, the followers of Jesus, were blasphemers.  He had arrest orders from Jerusalem to bring Christians into custody on blasphemy charges.  However, the resurrected Jesus met him in a blinding flash of light on the road to Damascus.  Saul the Christian-persecuting Pharisee became Paul, church-planting follower of Jesus.  He began traveling the Mediterranean world, starting churches.  One of those churches was the city of Philippi.  After starting that church, he writes a letter back to them and that letter is in our New Testament: Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

He writes in chapter 3 of that letter,

¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship^[l] is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation^[m] that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,^[n] by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

Paul’s two levels of understanding are clear.  He knows he is a citizen of the world.  He even sounds a bit arrogant in describing how he fits in the world.  In verse 5 of chapter three he writes,

⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Paul wasn’t just an average Joe.  He had a privileged status in Jewish society as a Pharisee and before deciding to follow Jesus, he used that status.  He also used his position when became a disciple.  In addition to being a Jewish Pharisee, Paul was a citizen of the Roman Empire.  And in the book of Acts, when he gets arrested on false charges, he uses his citizenship in order to appeal to the Emperor.  He does this in order to preach salvation in Jesus in the capital – Rome itself.

Paul exhibited an extraordinary intellect.  He was adept in using earthly systems in Israel, Greece, and Rome for the Heavenly goal of helping people come to faith in Jesus. 

Yet as we read, he tells the Philippian believers as well as future readers of the leader, people like you and me, “our citizenship is in Heaven.”  When he returns, he transforms each of us so that we conform to his glory.  What exactly does that mean?  It means after death, our bodies are resurrected as Jesus’ body was.  It means at his return – the Second Coming – he calls us to Himself and live in loving fellowship with God and with one another forever.

The most important effect of that promise of eternal love and fellowship with God is the way it forms how we live today, in the here and now as we await Jesus’ return.  Anticipating the final act of salvation and paying attention to the way God speaks to our hearts, we begin practicing the loving fellowship of Heaven in our lives on earth.  Because we know God is real and is present, we forgive instead of holding grudges.  Because we feel the touch of the Holy Spirit, we are motivated by love, not by selfish desire. 

Paul contrasts citizens of Heaven, followers of Jesus, with those he calls enemies of the cross.  He has certain Christian-persecutors in mind, but we can extend his definition to anyone who is apart from God and has no relationship with Jesus and has not receive forgiveness of sin.  Paul writes that their end is their destruction and their God is their belly.  People apart from God are driven by what satisfies them in life.  Followers of Jesus are convinced that God knows better how to fulfill than we do.  We trust that God’s grace is what we need more than anything else.  This is why Jesus says we “die to self.”  We know God will give life, so we give ourselves to God.

Paul was so convinced of this that he writes in Philippians 1:21,

²¹ For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. ²² If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. ²³ I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; ²⁴ but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. ²⁵ Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, ²⁶ so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

Paul was so acutely aware of the blessings of Heaven, he considered himself a citizen there – not here on earth – and he wanted to depart from here in order to be there.  That was his honest desire.  But that God-awareness also made it crystal clear to Paul what his calling was.  God wanted Paul to plant churches, help people become Christians, and build up the way of Christ in the Roman Empire.  Because he knew of another world, the Heavenly realm, and because his certainty of the reality and goodness of God was unshakable, he devoted his life to establishing communities of love on earth.

When we inhabit two worlds, we always have hope because we know God is with us, because we know are part of a greater community, and because we know our future is resurrection.

When we inhabit two worlds, we try to do as much good here as we can because we have been and are being transformed into the image of Christ who is the supreme example of perfect compassion, complete forgiveness and mercy, and total love. 

If you are unaware of two world and your life is spent only this one, which is snowy in North Carolina today, I pray that you would come to know Jesus as your Savior.  Ask God to come into your heart, forgive your sins, and open your mind to His presence and love.  When the snow clear, drive to a church and meet the people there.  Find out what they are all about and what it means to have life in Christ.

If you are aware of two worlds – Heaven and Earth – I pray that today your citizenship in the Heavenly world will form how you live in the earthly one.  Let Christ speak in you.  Be a person of compassion.  Be patient with the world around you.  The world is fallen and is falling away from God.  We in the church are his agents.  Through us He speaks his promise of salvation and redemption.  If you know of the Heavenly realm, let your life speak.  Maybe someone you know is hurting and the healing will begin when they meet Jesus in you.

Thanks for listening everyone.  Wherever you are, I pray you feel God’s blessing today.