Seeing God

The following are excerpts from a book I am reading called HEAVEN, by Randy Alcorn. He covers the concept and misconceptions many in the church have about Heaven and seeing God.


" Every day we should see God in His creation: the food we eat, the air we breathe, the friendships we enjoy, and the pleasures of family, work, and hobbies. Yes, we must sometimes forgo secondary pleasures, and we should never let them eclipse God. And we should avoid opulence and waste when others are needy. But we should thank God for all of life's joys, large and small, and allow them to draw us to Him. That is exactly what we will do in Heaven......so why not start now?"


" Psalm 36:8-9 - They feast on the abundance of Your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with You is the fountain of life."


" Theologian Sam Storms writes, " We will constantly be more amazed with God, more in love with God, and thus ever more relishing His presence and our relationship with Him. Our experience of God will never reach its consummation. We will never finally arrive, as if upon reaching a peak we discover there is nothing beyond. Our experience of God will never become stale. It will deepen and develop, intensivy and amplify, unfold and increase, broaden and balloon."


" Beholding and knowing God, we will spend eternity worshiping, exploring, and serving Him, seeing His magnificent beauty in everything and everyone around us. Augustine wrote in The City of God  " We shall in the future world see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth in such a way that we shall most distinctly recognize God everywhere present and governing all things, material as well as spiritual. In the new universe, as we study nature, as we pursue science and mathematics and every realm of knowledge, we'll see God in everything, for He is behind it all."



 " It might be better, then, if we think of the location of the present Heaven as not in another universe but simply as a part of ours that we are unable to see, due to our spiritual blindness. It that's true, when we die we don't go to a different universe but to a place within our universe that we're currently unable to see. "


"Just as blind people cannot see the world, even though it exists all around them, we are unable to see Heaven in our fallen condition. Is it possible that before sin and the Curse, Adam and Eve saw clearly what is now invisible to us? Does death restore a visual acuity we once had? Willard says, 'When we pass through what we call death, we do not lose the world. Indeed, we see it for the first time as it really is."


"Consider this statement: "God Himself will be with them" (Revelation 21:3) Why does it emphatically say God Himself? Because God won't merely send us a delegate. He will actually come to live among us on the New Earth. As Steven J. Lawson explains, " God's glory will fill and permeate the entire new Heaven, not just on centralized place. Thus, wherever we go in Heaven, we will be in the immediate presence of the full glory of God. Wherever we go, we will enjoy the complete manifestation of God's presence. Throughout all eternity, we will never be separated from direct, unhindered fellowship with God."


"God's glory will be the air we breathe, and we'll always breathe deeper to gain more of it. In the new universe, we'll never be able to travel far enough to leave God's presence. If we could, we'd never want to. However great the wonders of Heaven, God Himself is Heaven's greatest prize. Father Boudreau writes, "The beatitude of Heaven consists essentially in the vision, love, and enjoyment of God Himself."


Jonathan Edwards said in a 1733 sermon, "God is the  highest good  of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of Him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitly better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean."


The New Jerusalem that comes down from Heaven to be placed on planet earth- "We are certain that when the mists of death are cleared away, the whole City will stand visible and proud. Our inheritance is as sure as morning." Calvin Miller


I would add to these profound thoughts that the Bible says that ear has not heard, eye has not seen the things that God has prepared for those who love Him! Our best days are just ahead!!

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Don't Touch the Bride

Asher Intrater Throughout the Scriptures the people of God are referred to as His bride. This metaphor starts in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2), through all the queens of Israel (especially Esther), the Song of Solomon, the wedding parables of the Gospel, Paul's epistles, the glorified woman (Revelation 12), the bride made ready (Revelation 19:7), and the marriage feast (Revelation 21). It is a great mystery (Ephesians 5:32). In ancient times, those who took care of the wives of the king were eunuchs. They were given great delegated authority, on the one obvious condition that they could not touch the affections of any of his brides. We as dedicated believers in Yeshua (Jesus) are members of His spiritual bride. There are those of us who are called also to be "friends of the bridegroom" (John 3:29). They are part of the bride but also have some leadership to help prepare the bride for His coming. These co-leader-friends have special access to the people of God, to the heart of the bride. However, like spiritual eunuchs (Matthew 19:12), they must be sure not to steal the affections, attention, and ownership of the bride. My wife and I have a wonderful relationship; we are best friends and lovers after 30 years of marriage. Yet I am the number two man in her life; number one is Yeshua. Those of us called to leadership must be very careful to die to the temptation of "stealing the attention" or "possessing the affections" of the people of God. We have the love and respect of the people but only to a secondary degree. This is true of worship leaders, pastors, preachers, and anyone in a place of authority or influence. When we operate in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, people are drawn to us and to Yeshua in us. That is acceptable. At the Red Sea, the people of Israel believed in both God and Moses (Exodus 14:31). Yet Moses was very conscious not to pull the hearts of the people toward himself. (It took forty years in the desert to die to that tendency.) The subconscious desire to gain affection and honor is incredibly dangerous and subtle. It lies at the root of the fall of Lucifer. May those of us in leadership enjoy the love and trust of the people of God, but make sure that we never let the subtleties of pride lure us into "touching the bride." She is for Him. Dream of Second Coming (Excerpt, night between 20-21 January, 2012) We were standing in a field near our home in Israel. There was a feeling in the air as if right before a big storm. The wind was blowing and the clouds were racing across the sky. The feeling grew and intensified. Those of us who were believers began to understand that these were signs that the time of the Second Coming had arrived. No one had to tell us, we just knew. In fact, we knew that there were only 13-14 minutes left. This time was also concurrent with a battery of missiles launched at Israel from Iran; they were in the air on the way and would land in the same 13-14 minutes. We felt the fear of the Lord; there was an intense urgency to tell the people around us what was happening. The non-believers around us sensed that a great disaster was about to happen, like a war or an earthquake-tsunami. They were crowding into cars in order to flee, but they didn't know where to flee. I turned to one car, with a family of one of the people who threw me out of the synagogue in our neighborhood. I told them they needed to cry out to Yeshua. They frowned at me, but knew that this was right. They cried to the Lord and were saved. I turned to another family, also from the synagogue, and told them the same thing. They also frowned, but this time, they rejected the message and were lost. I turned to a close relative getting into another car with friends. I told them to cry out to the Lord. They also frowned, and seemed perplexed; I did not know whether they decided to accept it or not. The fear of the Lord intensified wildly. We, the believers, were not at all fearful for ourselves. We were totally at peace and secure about our own destiny. However, the concern for those around us grew to almost a panic. Thinking back over our lives - whatever we had done which was not part of spreading the kingdom of God had been a waste of time. I awoke with that same fear of the Lord, an urgency to preach the good news from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 24:14), and that "before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, all those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (escape)" – Acts 2:20-21.