Teague Bible Church

Only a few were skiing that day on Steven’s Pass in Washington State. It was a most calm and beautiful day to ski. I see, down the slope, a family who had stopped by a tree, so I glided right up next to them.

As I pulled up slowly I heard the dad say, “Now we came here to have a good @&#%* time, and we are going to have one!” The teenage daughter said, ” Well you can @&#*% that idea, I never wanted to come in the first place!” My first thought was what would have happened to me if I had said anything like that to an adult, when I was a kid, and secondly, what a sorry excuse for a parent.

Thirdly, and best I think, I considered what it would take to make these self-absorbed people happy? I wondered what set of external conditions would cause them to be context and thankful? I realized that their hearts could never be made happy by external conditions. Nothing God could do externally could make them be the persons they were meant to be.

You even hear Christians, when sharing their faith, say things like, “Don’t you want to go to heaven where you will see the Christian loved ones that have gone on before, where there are streets of gold!” I hear that and I wonder why is it not enough that God is there so we can have a loving relationship with Him forever? Why do we feel it necessary to sweeten -the-pot and mention what some would consider more interesting aspects of heaven , i.e., the external things, or people who have gone on before?

It is impossible for God to make a person happy, by external things, either here or there, if one’s heart is not at a place they know Christ. Ten minutes in heaven and these folks would be complaining about the long walk on the streets of gold! He does not have to give you and I a bunch of stuff for us to be happy! In fact, if it turned out, that I did not get to see anybody else in heaven but the Lord, I would not be disappointed. No sweetening- of- the- pot necessary. When I see those nailed -scarred hands, and realize my sin is over and my shame is gone, when I realize He wants to embrace me; that is heaven!

John 17: 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

This verse would have been a great place to mention all the external things of heaven, but instead, this clearest verse on the core of eternal life says nothing of heaven. This does not mean there is not a physical heaven; there is; it is just not the main thing.

Steven’s Pass, or Crystal Mountain, or White Pass, ( all these in Washington State) used to make me tear up with joy every time I went, but that was caused by what I brought with me, in my heart, before I got there. I am thinking about the beauty of the one who created it, not the created thing itself. I did not come to this own my own; it is God’s free gift of grace given to me by Jesus Christ.

“We came here to have a good time!” With a new heart, and in His presence, time being of no concern, and things being meaningless there, the good is His love. My deepest longings fulfilled, forever. JWP

John 17:3/ I John 3:1-3/ Psalms 73: 25-28