Heaven without Christ

"If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there? "

Would you say, "I just might be okay with that"? If you are deeply in love with God, you would never be satisfied in a heaven without Christ.

This struck me today. I was reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Do I love God? Am I deeply in love with Him? He created me, he knew me before I was born, He LOVES me. The greatest commandament of all is: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27) What does it mean to love God? Do I experience true satisfaction and pleasure and joy in my relationship with Him? To try to love God with my own strength would be the toughest thing to do. I need to depend on Him to do that. I am not strong enough to love Him and walk with Him on my own. I can't do it. I need God desperately to help me do it.

Will we leave this world with regrets?

Psalms 49:16-19 MSG

So don’t be impressed with those who get rich and pile up fame and fortune. They can’t take it with them; fame and fortune all get left behind. Just when they think they’ve arrived and folks praise them because they’ve made good, They enter the family burial plot where they’ll never see sunshine again.

Why are we studying/working so hard to earn enough money that would give us a comfortable life? Is it worthwhile to spend so much of our time and effort to keep accumulating savings for our security? What I gather from the above verses is that all these money and popularity that we have on this earth will come to nothing when our time on earth is done. Why then, do we focus so much on having security and comfort on earth, when we will spend eternity elsewhere? I want to focus on my eternity, build and lay my treasures there, rather than on earth where I will not be able to bring my fame and fortune away with me when I am gone.

The Cost of Non-Discipleship

Luke 9:23 NKJV

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.

What does this verse mean? A short verse like this actually means ALOT. If you interpret it correctly, it will cost you your entire life. Are you willing to sacrifice ALL that God has given to you? Are you willing to follow Christ and live for Him daily? Living for Him daily doesn't mean going to your work and doing your usual routines, ignoring the need for salvation for the people around you.

//To sacrifice EVERYTHING in radical devotion to Jesus means to surrender our lives, our rights, our ambitions, our plans, our dreams, our families, our relationship, our possessions, our safety, our security, our past, our present, and our future to the absolute lordship of Jesus. It is to relinquish to him our control of the way we think, the way we feel, the way we act, the way we relate, and the way we live. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his classic book entitled The Cost of Discipleship, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."

When Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith, the price is high. The cost of nondiscipleship is extremely high for people around the world who don't know Christ. Even the most liberal estimates put the number of Christians at one-third of the world's population. This means that at least 4.5 billion people today are without Christ and are destined for an eternal hell. As long as Christians choose to play games in their churches while they spend their lives fulfilling the Singaporean dream, billions in need of the gospel will remain hopelessly in the dark. The cost will be high for the lost if we do not follow Chirst radically.

The cost of nondiscipleship is also high for the poor in the world. Consider the price when Christians ignore Jesus' commands to give away their possessions for the sake of the poor and instead choose to spend their resources on larger homes, nicer cars, and more stuff. Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves. Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gate of contemporary Christian affluence.

I remember preparing to take my first trip to Sudan in 2004. The coy the was still at war, and the Darfur region in western Sudan had just begun to make headlines. A couple of months before we left, I received a Christian news publication in the mail. The front cover had two headlines side by side. I'm not sure if the editor planned for these particular headlines to be next to each other or he just missed it in a really big way.

On the left the headline read, "First Baptist Church Celebrates New $23 Million Building." A lengthy article followed, celebrating the church's expensive new sanctuary. It described in detail the building's exquisite marble, intricate design, and beautiful stained glass.

On the right was a much smaller article. The healinr for it read, "Baptist Relief Helps Sudanese Refugees." Knowing I was about to go to Sudan, my attention was drawn. As I read the article, it described how 350,000 refugees in western Sudan were dying of malnutrition and might not live to the end of the year. It briefly explained their plight and sufferings. When I got to the end of the article, the last sentence said that Baptists had sent money to help relieve the suffering of the Sudanese. I was excited until I got to the amount.

Now, remember what was on the left: "First Baptist Church Celebrates New $23 Million Building." On the right, the article said, "Baptists have raided $5,000 to send to refugees in western Sudan."

Five thousand dollars.

That is not enough to get a plane into Sudan, much less one drop of water to people who need it.

Twenty-three million dollars for an elaborate sanctuary and five thousand dollars for hundreds and thousands of starving men, women, and children, most of whom were dying apart from faith in Christ.

Where have we gone wrong?

How did we get to the place where this is tolerable?

Yes, the cost of nondiscipleship is great. The cost of believers not taking Jesus' worth seriously is vast for those who don't know Christ and devastating for those who are starving and suffering around the world.

But they are not the only ones who pay the cost of nondiscipleship. We pay it as well. //

Taken from The Radical Question, David Platt

Francis Chan's Rope Illustration

Francis Chan's Rope Illustration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF_x8dsvb_4

This illustration is a reality that many of us have failed to realize. What are we doing with our life on earth? Are we trying so hard and spending all our time to study hard, get good grades that would earn us a place in a prestigious school, just so that we will be able to graduate with a degree, that would help us get a job that would pay us well, so that we can live the Singaporean Dream--branded bags, bigger house, posh cars, luxurious holidays--and retire with enough money in our bank accounts to last us an entire lifetime and maybe even leave some money behind for our children, who in turn continue the vicious cycle of studying hard...

What is our actual purpose on earth--this place we call not our home? Are we laying our treasures here on earth where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, when we have been commanded to lay our treasures in heaven? (Matt 6:19) When your time on earth is done, will you be able to hear your Father say "Well done, good and faithful servant" or will He say "Depart, for I never knew you"? (Matt 7:21-23)

We have been called to deny ourselves/die to ourselves. (Luke 9:23) What does that mean?

The Radical Question: What is Jesus worth to you?

I just feel the need to share from David Platt's "The Radical Question: What is Jesus worth to you?" as it has impacted me greatly. Lest I forget it a few months after I have read it, I want to pen it down.

THE WORLD AS IT IS

Look at the world.

See a world where, over the last few years, more than half a million people have died instantly--in tsunamis in southeast Asia, cyclones in Myanmar, earthquakes in China and Pakistan, or floods in Nepal and Bangladesh--and where most of those half-million people had never once heard the gospel. They are joined today by a billion others who at this moment still have not heard that Christ came to save them from their sins.

See a world where half the population is living on less than two dollars a day while you and I, by contrast, are extremely rich.

See the nation of India, where there are more people living below the poverty line than there are total people in the United States.

See a world where today alone twenty-six thousand children will die either of starvation or a preventable disease.

See our dogs and eats eating better than our brothers and sisters in central Africa.

See a world where last fall, in one week alone, fifty thousand people died of AIDS, more than a hundred thousand children died of hunger-related diseases, thousands of other children were trafficked around the world of sexual exploitation, and hundreds were killed in an earthquake in Pakistan. All in one week. And yet, during that same week, the greatest concerns for many of us were how our football teams played and how our CPF accounts fared.

In addition to all this, see thousands upon thousands of our brothers and sisters in China and North Korea and Laos and Saudi Arabia imprisoned and killed because of their faith in Christ.

See all these things, and realize that the purpose of our lives is not just to have a comfortable life, a good career, a decent family, and an easy retirement in this world. We were created for so much more than this. Jesus is worthy of so much more than this.

We have a choice. We can settle for casual devotion to Jesus, sitting comfortably in our nice church buildings, where we are insulated and isolated from the inner city and the spiritual lostness of the world. We can give a tip of our hats to the purpose of Christ in the world while we go on designing endless (church) activities that revolve around us. We can retreat into our nice, cozy communities where we can live nice, decent lives while we pretend the starving millions do not exist. We can hide behind our catchy phrases and our easy prayers that dilute the awesome reality of who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. We can spend our Christian lives sitting comfortably in the nurseries of our churches while drinking spiritual milk.

Or we can decide that Jesus is worth more than this.

We can decide that he has created us for a much greater purpose. We can decide to die to ourselves and our dreams and our plans, and we can decide to let our hearts be conquered by a superior ambition. Ultimately, we can decide to sacrifice our lives, our gifts, our skills, our time, our families, and our resources to make the great worth of Christ known amid urgent spiritual and physical needs in all the world.

Let's sacrifice it all!

For the glory of Christ among a billion people who have not even heard the gospel...

For the sake of people who are starving, suffering and dying every single day...

For the millions in your city who do not know Christ and are headed of a Christless eternity..

For all of this and more, let's sacrifice it all!

And when we do, we will discover that Jesus is, indeed, absolutely worthy of all our plans and all our dreams and all our ambitions.

Taken from The Radical Question, David Platt

(Some parts have been modified to fit the Singapore context)