Key Verse: 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
Harps, clouds, and white-lots of white. That's the picture most of us have when we think about heaven. To be honest, heaven has always seemed kind of gaudy to me. I mean...pearly gates and streets of gold? If this is our picture of heaven, then it's not going to be much of a motivational factor in the life of the Church. Who wants to go to a place where you have to sit in a choir loft for all eternity?
The truth is that heaven is going to be a place more magnificent than your wildest dreams. The Bible says that when Christ returns and takes us home, he's going to make everything new. All the pain and frustration we deal with now-and all the things that cause them-will be gone. Can you imagine what it will be like to not have to deal with sin anymore, to never have to wrestle with your thoughts again, to live in a place where you can see Jesus with your very own eyes?
If heaven seems boring to you, then you don't have a very clear picture of it. This week we're going to look at the eternal future of the Church. We're going to have to use our imaginations, but the Holy Spirit has given us some guidelines in Scripture to help us understand a place that's so amazing we don't even have the words to describe it.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Student Devotion Week 46: The Church Prepared: John's Vision
Key Verse: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
Have you ever seen a dead church? It's kind of depressing. I know of one. It's small, and the cemetery next to it is the only part that still gets visitors. Through an open doorway, you can see the pews and the place where the pulpit used to be. Those windows might have once held stained glass, but the church is dead. No one meets there anymore, and who knows what happened to the people. It's a sad commentary, but it ought to remind us of the spiritual battle we're all involved in. It should also make us perk up and stay alert to Satan's plans to destroy us however he can.
Jesus will never abandon a church without a fight. The book of Revelation is about a vision John had while exiled on the island of Patmos. Through this vision a message was sent to seven churches, challenging and encouraging them to stand firm. The stakes were huge; they could have lost it all or gained a crown of glory.
Jesus is returning one day, and he'll do everything he can to make sure we're prepared before he comes. That means he sometimes has to tell us things that are hard to hear, but it's for our own good. And when we obey his commands, we can be confident that he'll bring about all he's promised. This week we're going to examine what Jesus said to those seven churches-and find out how we can protect our own.
Have you ever seen a dead church? It's kind of depressing. I know of one. It's small, and the cemetery next to it is the only part that still gets visitors. Through an open doorway, you can see the pews and the place where the pulpit used to be. Those windows might have once held stained glass, but the church is dead. No one meets there anymore, and who knows what happened to the people. It's a sad commentary, but it ought to remind us of the spiritual battle we're all involved in. It should also make us perk up and stay alert to Satan's plans to destroy us however he can.
Jesus will never abandon a church without a fight. The book of Revelation is about a vision John had while exiled on the island of Patmos. Through this vision a message was sent to seven churches, challenging and encouraging them to stand firm. The stakes were huge; they could have lost it all or gained a crown of glory.
Jesus is returning one day, and he'll do everything he can to make sure we're prepared before he comes. That means he sometimes has to tell us things that are hard to hear, but it's for our own good. And when we obey his commands, we can be confident that he'll bring about all he's promised. This week we're going to examine what Jesus said to those seven churches-and find out how we can protect our own.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Student Devotion Week 46: Your Role: Peter and the Priesthood of Believers
Key Verse: 1 Peter 2:9, " But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."
I don't know how your family does it, but in order to accommodate all the people at my family's Thanksgiving, we had a kiddie table for anyone under 18. I never liked the kiddie table. I felt I was missing out on everything just because I wasn't old enough. All I wanted was to be a big person.
I'm sure the Old Testament Jews also felt this way since almost non of them were allowed in the Temple. It wasn't that they weren't old enough; they weren't holy enough. Only the priests could go before God.
This week we're going to consider an important Christian belief called the priesthood of the believer." It means that when you become a Christian, you become a priest of sorts. Instead of there being only a few priests who go before God for us, as believers in Jesus we all get full access to God. In the early Church, Peter was the one everyone looked to for spiritual guidance. But he was adamant about helping people understand that he wasn't the only one who could communicate with God. We all can listen and talk to God through Jesus Christ. Together we're all a "holy priesthood."
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