christian living on Paradise

Kindness flows from you, Lord, pure and continual. You had cast us off, as was only just, but mercifully you forgave us; you hated us and you were reconciled to us, you cursed us and you blessed us; y...

You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven; You, the land promised to the gentle; You the grazing lands of paradise; You, the hall of the celestial banquet; You, the ineffable marriage chamber; You the...

Thanksgiving is the experience of paradise…paradise is the primordial state of man and all creation, our state before the fall…and our state upon our salvation by Christ...Paradise is, in other words,...

No sign that ever was given To faithful or faithless eyes Showed ever beyond clouds riven So clear a paradise. Earth’s creeds may be seventy times seven And blood have defiled each creed But if such b...

Satan gives Adam an apple, and takes away Paradise. Therefore, in all temptations let us consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.

Every saint in heaven is as a flower in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrance and sweet odor that they all send forth, and with which they fill the bowers of that paradise above. Every sou...

Because of man’s fall into sin, a curse was pronounced over the creation. God now sent His Son into this world to redeem that creation from the results of sin. The work of Christ, therefore, is not ju...

Let us begin with a question. Do you really know how to enjoy the world? Do you know how to enjoy yourself? One of the greatest parables in the New Testament has to do with the search for enjoyment an...

In this beautiful poem by the English Divine John Donne, our nature as both redeemed and still sinful is eloquently described: We think that Paradise and Calvary, Christ’s Cross and Adam’s Tree, ...

Jesus – Savior: Praise You. Thank You. We’d never have done what You did We’d never give up so much for someone else who cared so little about us. … and we can’t imagine anyone doing it for us. But Yo...

This prayer incorporates texts from Christ the Lord is Risen Today by Charles Wesley as a congregational response, a choral response, or a second voice. The responses may be sung or spoken. If sung,...

Blog post adapted from Necessary Christianity by Claude Alexander, Jr. Adapted from Chapter 5, "I Must Be Diligent" The life of Jesus reveals that God’s call and God’s claim on the belie...

Eucharist [thanksgiving] is the state of the perfect man. Eucharist is the life of paradise. Eucharist is the only full and real response of man to God’s creation, redemption, and gift of heaven.

Everyone wants it. It’s the thing that fuels what we do. It’s the thing that stimulates courage and perseverance. It’s what gets you through the tough times and keeps you from quitting. It’s hard to b...

Sometime in the last decade or so I started hearing the phrase “all that good stuff.” I think it happened first when I was ordering dinner at a restaurant. The waitress summarized the menu briefly, en...

Life’s pleasures—success at work, a good meal, a beautiful song, satisfying sex, a splendid aroma—are sacraments, yes sacraments, of the new Heavens and earth.

On this earth, then, in our deserts, God personally reveals and names himself. When he does so, his pleasure floods our senses, his beauty engulfs us, and our God-misconceptions are devastated. He mov...

Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there.

The green oasis, the little grassy meadow in the wilderness, where, after the week-day’s journey, the pilgrim halts for refreshment and repose.

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we ha...

Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure; Where your treasure is, there is your heart; Where your heart is, there is your happiness.

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

This prayer, written by the great British pastor and poet John Donne, anticipates the new heaven and new earth that we will one day experience with our Lord: Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening ...

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult...

The road to the promised land runs past Sinai.

On this earth, then, in our deserts, God personally reveals and names himself. When he does so, his pleasure floods our senses, his beauty engulfs us, and our God-misconceptions are devastated. He mov...

Leader: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. All: And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of he...

When one has once fully entered the realm of Love, the world—no matter how imperfect—becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for Love.

In heaven we shall see that we had not one trial too many.

Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for his dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.