heaven on Ambition

Questions on the Road When we encounter today’s text, Jesus and the disciples continue to make their way from Capernaum to Jerusalem. According to Google Maps (the most trusted first century map appl...

A good God would not create us with the kind of aspirations we have and then leave those aspirations unsatisfied.

Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.

Ascent is neither the lone journey of Jesus nor the abstracted elevation of the soul, but is the future for an embodied humanity that is copresent with Jesus and his Father.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lo...

Faithful God, we confess that we have trusted our own plans instead of Yours. We have built and saved and schemed to secure our future, but we haven’t placed our trust in You. We know that Jesus told ...

Remember that as a faithful child of God you await promotion.

Let us, who are on the way, hasten home; for our whole life is like the journey of a single day. Our first duty is to love nothing here; but let us place our affections above, our desires above, our w...

The soul on earth is an immortal guest, compelled to starve at an unreal feast; a pilgrim panting for the rest to come; an exile, anxious for his native home.

The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.

[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yours...

I wonder. What home are you preparing for? Some people spend their lives building ultimate dream homes so they can enjoy their twilight years. Some find themselves exchanging their bank accounts for r...

Whenever I am traveling, I constantly look forward to the moment when I will return home. Even if I’m very busy and preoccupied, in the back of my mind one thought is always present: “Soon I’ll be goi...

Before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, many believed the world ended somewhere beyond Gibraltar, reflected in Spain’s royal motto: “Ne Plus Ultra,” meaning, “there is no more beyond.” But when Columb...

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Heavenly Father, you have called us to step outside the church and into your world to carry out your kingdom work. We are to love our neighbors, serve those who may call us enemies, and pray for those...

Introduction Our text falls within a larger section (Luke 16) in which Jesus deals head-on with questions of money, specifically the need to choose God over mammon (the worship of money), in other wo...

Intro These are incredibly rich texts. This guide recommends taking a detour through salvation history to put them in their right context. This helps your congregation expand their understanding of ...

Intro These are incredibly rich texts. This guide recommends taking a detour through salvation history to put them in their right context. This helps your congregation expand their understanding of ...

Glimpses of God’s Kingdom In these parables, Jesus provides two glimpses of God’s Kingdom: the slow growth of a seed into a stalk of wheat and the growth of a humble mustard seed. Both of Jesus’ para...

Introduction Our text falls within a larger section (Luke 16) in which Jesus deals head-on with questions of money, specifically the need to choose God over mammon (the worship of money), in other wo...

Glimpses of God’s Kingdom In these parables, Jesus provides two glimpses of God’s Kingdom: the slow growth of a seed into a stalk of wheat and the growth of a humble mustard seed. Both of Jesus’ para...

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born ...

The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.

In this brief excerpt, the French Catholic Francis de Sales reflects on how his meditations on eternity consistently elevate his spirit: I never think upon eternity without receiving great comfort...

Life is short, and we can accomplish only so much. Much of what we do will remain unfinished. For now. In one of my favorite short stories of all time, “Leaf by Niggle,” author J. R. R. Tolkien provid...

An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...

Our culture is so fixated on dying and going to heaven when the whole Scripture is about heaven coming to earth.

Henry Rimmer wrote a letter to Charles Fuller when he heard that Fuller was going to preach on the subject of heaven on Sunday night at church. Rimmer was an old man about to die. He wrote to Fuller ...

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.