What Is Heaven Like?

Dr. Ray Pritchard

[Content provided by Keep Believing Ministries.]

"Heaven is a place, just as much a place as is New York or Chicago." Charles Ferguson Ball

Everyone wants to know about heaven and everyone wants to go there. Recent polls suggest that nearly 80% of all Americans believe there is a place called heaven. I find that statistic encouraging because it tells me that even in this skeptical age there is something deep inside the human heart that cries out, "There's got to be something more. Something more than the pain and suffering of this life. Something more than 70 or 80 years on planet earth. Something more than being born, living, dying, and then being buried in the ground. Sometimes we talk about a "God-shaped vacuum" inside the human heart. I believe there is also a "heaven-shaped vacuum," a sense that we were made for something more than this life. We were made to live forever somewhere. In a real sense we were made for heaven.  Read the entire post.

Churches and Inward Drift

Ton Ranier, President of Lifeway, has published provoking thoughts about churches that have an inward focus.  He says that any church that has been in existence has a tendency to have an inward focus. He says that:

"All organizations tend to lose their focus and forget their original purposes over time. I call this almost imperceptible movement “inward drift.”  The attitude becomes one of protecting the way "we’ve always done it" rather than looking back to the original purposes and reasons for existence. Numbers of stagecoach businesses failed, for example, because they thought their primary purpose was to make stagecoaches rather than to provide reasonable and rapid transportation.  "

Tom lists five signs of inward focus in his post.  How many of the signs are evident at Bethlehem? Read more

Thanksgiving

David Ashcraft

Psalm 136 is a song of thanksgiving with a repetitive phrase, "for his steadfast love endures forever."  As you read the psalm this thanksgiving, apply it to your own life.  God's steadfast love for you will endure forever. 

Think back over your life and reflect on the blessings you have received.

Look forward to an eternal life with the one whose "steadfast love endures forever."

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Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever. 

Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

 
Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

• to him who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever; 
• to him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever; 
• to him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever; 
• to him who made the great lights: the sun to rule over the day and the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever; 
• to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt and brought Israel out from among them with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever;  
• to him who divided the Red Sea in two and made Israel pass through the midst of it but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever; 
•  to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever; 
• to him who struck down great kings and killed mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan  and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to Israel his servant, for his steadfast love endures forever;