There’s a story of a young girl on a plane who was reading her Bible, and there was a businessman sitting next to her. He looked over to her and he said, you don’t really believe that do you?” And she...
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...
In her short story Revelation, Flannery O’Connor describes a woman sitting in a Doctor’s office, gossiping away without concern for who hears her questionable commentary: This woman says to hersel...
A man appears before the pearly gates. “Have you ever done anything of particular merit?” St. Peter asks. “Well, I can think of one thing….” the man offers. “Once I came upon a gang of high-testoster...
Exodus 14:10-16, 1 Kings 18:21-39, Matthew 14:28-31, James 1:5-6, Psalm 121:1-2
An atheist fell off a cliff. As he tumbled downward, he caught hold of the branch of a small tree. There he hung between heaven above and the rocks a thousand feet below, knowing he wasn’t going to be...
When a father tucked his eight-year-old daughter into bed, he asked her a serious question: “What’s the one thing you’re looking forward to the most about heaven?” Immediately, the girl’s eyes lit up ...
Perhaps you’ve heard the humorous story about a man who was about to die so he liquidated all his assets, turning them into gold bricks. He required his family to pack the bricks in two suitcases and ...
After thirty years of being pastor, I am still amazed by the number of people who believe God is going to grade on a curve. They know they have done wrong, have mistreated others, particularly those c...
When [Abraham] Lincoln was running for the House of Representatives from Illinois, he was charged with being “a scoffer at religion,” wrote the historian William J. Wolf, because he belonged to no chu...
Alastair Begg offers a poignant and humorous take on what it must have been like for the thief on the cross to reach heaven’s gates. And the point at the end is powerful. That’s what the angel must ...
I grew up in a Baptist church, and we looked forward to the day when we would be in heaven and there would be no more divisions. Some Lutherans would be there, represented by Martin Luther. Methodists...
Many of us westerners are familiar with the stories of the first Apollo missions and the “space race” with Russia. What we are less familiar with is the experience from the other side, from the Russia...
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...
“There is a place called heaven where the good here unfinished is made complete; and where the stories unwritten and hopes unfulfilled are continued. We shall laugh together yet.”
Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
John 14:26, Acts 9:1-19, Matthew 17:1-8, Isaiah 61:1, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Acts 2:1-4, Acts 2:1-41
Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of Your light like dew.
Genesis 1:1-31, Revelation 4:11, Psalm 139:13-14, John 14:6, Philippians 3:20-21
When Billy Graham was 92 years old, he was struggling with Parkinson's disease. In January, a month before his 93rd birthday, leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina, invited their favorite son, Bill...
Heaven is itself the metaphor of metaphors, for a metaphor opens to more and more meaning, and heaven is an unbordered meadow of meaning. Heaven is where language collapses into perfect language and t...
Isaiah 25:6-9, Daniel 7:13-14, Zechariah 8:4-5, Luke 24:36-43, Revelation 21:1-5, Psalm 16:11
One day when George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher and writer, was talking with his son, the conversation turned to heaven and the prophets’ version of the end of all things. “It seems too goo...
Reader: Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! People: Praise befits the upright. Reader: Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; People: make melody to him with the harp ...
Matthew 25:35-40, James 1:27, Philippians 2:3-4, John 13:3-5, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 58:6-7, 1 John 3:18
An ancient legend tells of a well-respected rabbi who would vanish from his synagogue for a few hours each Sabbath. His mysterious absences sparked curiosity among his students, who wondered if their ...
I have a friend named Joy who teaches underprivileged children in an inner city church. Her class is a lively group of nine-year-olds year-olds who love life and aren’t afraid of God. There is one exc...
Colossians 1:13-14, Revelation 21:1-4, John 2:1-11, Revelation 19:9, John 4:14, Matthew 5:5, John 6:35
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...
Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 3:6-9, Matthew 6:19-21, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Galatians 6:9, 1 John 3:2, Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
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...
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.
Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.