Thursday, August 18, 2011

Are you any earthly good?

“Well, what earthly good are you preacher? Please tell me what have you done for the people of planet earth lately?”

Interesting question asked so many years ago by a neighbor. It has stuck with me through the weeks and months since it was asked. Contemplating the impact one is making on the world around us is quite a reflective moment. Are we, as the old adage states, “so heaven bound that we are no earthly good?”

Contemplating the neighbors question cause me to make a statement at Tuesday night Bible study. Which, by the way, got me into a huge amount of trouble with the senior pastor. The question, “If there was no heaven in the offering, would you still seek to be in an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ?” I would add now, if our earthly existence was all that there is with this earthly journey, would you, could you still be in a daily relationship with Jesus?

Or, are we in the relationship for the rewards …come by and by?

Dwight L. Moody shared, “A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.”

The promise of heaven is intended, at least from my perspective, to make the living out our days here on earth more joy-filled not easier. In my opinion, the promise of heaven makes taking relationship risks and doing the unthinkable, as well as the unimaginable more meaningful.

A small girl one evening looked up wondering at the star-studded sky and exclaimed: “If the wrong side of heaven looks like this, what must the right side be like?” Hmmm, shouldn’t she as well as everyone else be able to look into our face and at our life and know what heaven looks like?

That’s my opinion … and I’m sticking to it!

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