Scripture
THEN I SAW a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had vanished, and there was no longer any sea.
~Revelation 21:1, NEB
Quote
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him!
~The Apostle Paul
If you are female and you want to read good stuff written by women; you need to read every thing that Elisabeth Elliot wrote and I will put Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Anne Graham Lotz in that same illustrious group. If I ranked them, they would be in this same order. Ladies, if you have never read Nancy Leigh’s A PLACE OF QUIET REST, order it today and use it in your devotional reading for 2021. Currently, I am reading Anne Graham Lotz book on heaven and I am loving it. If you have Beth Moore books, burn them today. She is a false prophet who tickles ears and is making a fortune doing it.
John was imprisoned on the isle of Patmos. I don’t know if you’ve every stayed on an island for any length of time but you can get Island fever. June came down with a case of Island fever when we were in the Hawaiian Islands. It is very real; especially on a tiny island and Patmos is much smaller than any of the Hawaiian Islands. To John, the SEA was a barrier, something that separated him from those he loved. I was raised by WWII parents and they used the term “overseas” all the time. When Daddy prayed, he always remembered the soldiers and especially those overseas. It is not so true today but in John’s day, the sea was a great barrier or separator. The seas could separate a family; they even separate nations and continents.
In heaven there will be nothing to separate us from God, good or others. There will be no grief in heaven. Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trace Center in New York, thousands of New Yorkers carried pictures of their love ones who were missing. They even erected a memorial fence in one of the parks where pictures of missing persons were posted. This went on for six months and then slowly, families began to seek closure as they came to realize that their love ones were gone. June and I packed up and moved to New Orleans just two months after we got married. June was as tough as a pine knot and she never, not even once, complained about being away from home. That first Thanksgiving, we had planned to stay on campus because we had no money but on TG eve we rounded up a dime and I had a Gulf credit card {good only for gas at a Gulf station or a night at the Holiday Inn}. The dime was for calling home if we broke down. Home sickness happens when we feel separation from our family. By the way, we did make it home about 2:00 am on TG day. I have been separated from my father for some twenty five years and mother has been gone ten. I don’t miss them less each year, I miss them more. No more separation in heaven. We’ll never feel separated from Christ or the ones we love. Christ presence will be vividly real. We will no longer sense His presence, we will see HIM face to face.
Another blessed wonderful LORD’s day. We were down in attendance but not in spirit. Covid has hit Grace Point with a furry. We are a tiny church and we had three in the hospital with covid last week. Two came home yesterday. Mike Childers and Jean Smith are home and Don Widner is better, but he thought he was better last week and the Corona came back with a vengeance. Don may get to come home today. It will do just that: you think you are better and then zap, it has you down again. Pray for everyone with covid. DBC had two in the hospital all last week and they may still be there: Ralph Glenn and Sarah Hooper. It is a beast for older people. My sister Holly is also sick the virus.
You will not believe what you are about to read but I assure you it is true. If I had the choice of an Iron Bowl victory or a TRUMP victory, I would take Trump in a heart beat. Many of the conspirators are power mongers and they do not care about our country: there only concern is staying in power. I hope we never forget what the weak kneed, spineless Republicans like Shelby did to us. But I feel for the poor dupes, morons and idiots that think this country will prosper under the leadership of the democrats. It is a pipe dream, a crack pot pipe dream. Gas will be $3.00 a gallon by next Christmas. The stock market will go down and your taxes will go up. Of course most of the dupes don’t pay taxes: they are like their heroes in Washington, they are parasites living off of our blood and sweat of tax payers. I’m not complaining, I am just not happy about the election, or should I say the cheating. I am wearing my Trump cap every where I go for the next four years {if I live four years} and I am hoping some lib will say something about it because I have something I want to share with them.
I have recommended Timothy Keller’s devotional on Psalms but I do not recommend Proverbs. He is a social justice warrior and abortion is not on his list of social injustices. He is woke. The first part of Proverbs is good but he grinds his ax in the latter part. He doesn’t believe that poverty is caused by laziness. Internationally, I would agree but here in America, most poor folks are lazy. The ones I know don’t want a house or a house payment, they do not want a job either. They want a set of wheels, a cell phone, and some free money to buy their tobacco, beer and drugs. I didn’t say there are not any, I am saying there are not many, not in North Alabama. I can get you a job in a heartbeat if you are willing to work. I do agree with Keller that those of us who are prosperous should give God the credit but the poor in America are not victims of injustice. I am not buying that: the slaughter of the unborn is injustice.