I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
Look Up
It’s so normal to spend our time, energy, and attention focusing on the here and now. We’re busy, after all. Sometimes we're preoccupied. And when we stop to really think about it, it’s difficult to perceive something beyond our five senses.
But in his letter to the Colossians, Paul encourages his fellow believers to look up:
“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.”
Colossians 3:1 NLT
Think about that. The realities of heaven. As you think about Paul’s words, here are four things to consider:
1. Heaven isn’t some vague, dream-like state. It’s a real place, with real people, where God is the true King.
2. There will come a day when we will all meet God face to face. Everything we’ve hoped for will finally be revealed.
3. Our troubles and our heartbreaks (and even death itself) are temporary! Scripture tells us that a time is coming when God will do away with pain and death and sickness and suffering—forever.
4. God is still on His throne, with Jesus beside Him in the place of honor. No matter how crazy, senseless, or heartbreaking the world can seem, we can have confidence knowing that nothing is outside of God’s sovereign plan.
So when you’re tempted to look around at others or look inward at yourself, look up instead. Heaven is wherever God is, and that’s the truest reality of all.
“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for ...
“Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD's servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, ...
