Life-After-Death – Andrea Arthur Owan

Perhaps Today! Actively (and Expectantly) Awaiting Jesus’ Return

I’m a mug junkie. I have mugs overflowing around our house. Mugs in the cupboards. Mugs on a special shelf in our solarium-breakfast room. I even had my husband add another shelf to one of our kitchen cabinets to accommodate all of them. The cabinet right above the coffee maker. The cabinet stuffed with mugs, tea, and coffee-making supplies. It’s gotten to be a family joke.

I don’t remember when I started “collecting” them. I had a few mugs scattered around, special ones I’d picked up at seminars, (with conference logos and company promo material), national park mugs, and mugs from Hawaii with our Anglicized-Hawaiian names on them. But when I gave up collecting vacation-spot T-shirts, I gravitated toward mugs, which are much more difficult to haul home (unbroken) in a suitcase!

Now I have “retired” mugs on display on a special shelf, the ones I don’t want to break or wear down any longer through usage; and the noteworthy cracked ones I can’t bear to part with. And I have several secreted away that no one else is allowed to use but me. The mugs given as extra-special gifts, or the ones that remind me of sweet times Chris and I have spent together at some charming Bed and Breakfast.

But there’s one mug I’ve never used. It’s been prominently displayed on my writing desk for over 25 years. The blue marble-look mug I received after donating to a well-known ministry. The words on it remind me of something I should keep forefront in my mind. Every day. Words especially appropriate for this month when we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.

Perhaps Today!

Can you guess what those words reference?

They’re a reminder that our Lord will return one day. They’re a hope that perhaps today will be that glorious day—when He’ll return, subdue the earth, vanquish his foes, and lift up and resurrect the faithful.

Jesus’ Second Coming—

Of course, not everyone believes He will return. And not everyone harbors the hope within his or her heart that He will. Some are terrified it might be true.

I thought about my “Perhaps Today!” mug when reading a chapter from Max Lucado’s book And the Angels Were Silent: The Final Week of Jesus. Reading that book has been my Lenten practice nearly every year the last 23 years.

The particular chapter that brought the mug to mind is titled “Be Ready.” The verse associated with the chapter is Matthew 24:42:

“So always be ready, because you don’t know the day your Lord will come.”

It’s a winsome (and stark) reminder that being ready for His return is a way of life. A critical one.

Jesus’ Last Sermon on Earth—

In his book, Lucado examines what Jesus says and does (and doesn’t say and do) the last week of His earthly life. It’s a lesson—when time and distractions are stripped away—on what’s important. This particular chapter looks at the topic of Jesus’ last sermon.

What would you think a last-sermon topic would be? Like Lucado, we’d probably preach on love, or family, or church attendance, ministry support. Spreading the Gospel. Doing good and being good. Marching for some social justice issue.

But Jesus focuses on something He evidently believes is far more important.

He focuses on being prepared.

Or, as Lucado bluntly puts it:

“He preached on being ready for heaven and staying out of hell.”

Hell. Now there’s a word many recoil at. “Does anyone believe in hell anymore?” you might ask.

Jesus is a firm believer in it. If you haven’t tallied up the numbers, He talked about hell and money more than anything else while He was on earth.

But it’s become a passé or quaint subject. An idea reserved for the undereducated or simple-minded. As Lucado points out:

“We don’t like to talk about hell, do we? In intellectual circles the topic of hell is regarded as primitive and foolish. It’s not logical. ‘A loving God wouldn’t send people to hell.’ So we dismiss it.

But to dismiss it is to dismiss a core teaching of Jesus. The doctrine of hell is not one developed by Paul, Peter, or John. It is taught by Jesus himself.

And to dismiss it is to dismiss much more. It is to dismiss the presence of a loving God and the privilege of a free choice.”

And that’s the point: we all have a free choice. To choose heaven or hell. And God will honor what we choose.

Where will you choose to spend eternity?

God talks a lot about what we’ll gain by going to heaven, how we can get there, and what consequences we face if we choose poorly.

And that leaves me with one more point Lucado made. An ironclad argument against this idea that there is a heaven but no opposite place—hell—in existence.

“To reject the dualistic outcome of history and say there is no hell leaves gaping holes in any banner of a just God. To say there is not hell is to say God condones the rebellious, unrepentant heart. To say there is no hell is to portray God will eyes blind to the hunger and evil in the world. To say there is no hell is to say that God doesn’t care that people are beaten and massacred, that he doesn’t care that women are raped or families wrecked. To say there is no hell is to say God has no justice, no sense of right and wrong, and eventually to say God has no love. For true love hates evil.

Hell is the ultimate expression of a just Creator.”

I’ll add one more thought: If there is no hell, why would Jesus have to endure humiliation, abandonment, torture, and a cruel Roman cross to provide a way for us to enter and enjoy heaven? Was that all just one big wasted event?

Surprisingly, staying out of hell and making the choice for Him and an eternal life in heaven, is the same topic he preached on during His first sermon.

He constantly warned people to be prepared. He focused on the subject the last week of His life, three short days before His death.

And I believe it’s a subject we need to return to today. Not by standing on street corners with signs, pointing angry fingers at people and shouting at them through angry, twisted lips and with blazing eyes that they’re headed for doom.

I think it’s something we need to continue talking about in a loving, firm way. With hearts of concern for the rejecters or uncommitted. As I’ve heard pastors say, “If you saw someone in a burning building, wouldn’t you try to do everything you could to save them? Or would you just walk by and say, ‘Oh well?'”

I know many think we believers-in-hell are feeble-minded, duped, or downright nuts. But that’s okay with me. I’d rather it weren’t true; I’d like to believe that God just says, “Okay. I’m going to let everyone into heaven, even if they’ve rejected me. Or just annihilate them so they’ll never know what they’re missing. That’s a belief to which many faithful are now subscribing. It just sounds nicer.

But I can’t have it my way. I don’t make the rules. God does. And I don’t think He would have spent so much time warning against it if it were just some big cosmic joke. A “just kidding” discussion.

What to do while we’re waiting—

Does looking forward to His second coming mean I do nothing but twiddle my thumbs until it happens? Many people that laugh at us, thinking that’s what we’re do.

But when I think “Perhaps Today!” my looking forward to it in anticipation should drive me closer to preparation, being found busy and active, as Jesus instructs us to be. Doing His work down here, like a faithful ambassador, until He returns.

So, along with the “Perhaps Today” thought, I try to start every day with a Jewish adage I learned some years ago: “Rise up like a lion in the service of the Lord.”

You never know when or at what hour you might be called. You might as well be busy during the waiting and anticipation process.

And then it will be too late.

May God grant you a happy, expectant “Perhaps Today!” heart as you prepare for the commemoration of His final week, crucifixion and glorious Resurrection, and live every day of your life until He returns!

Until next time,

Shalom!

Andrea

“Certainly there was an Eden….We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

Was the Resurrection More Spirit than Body?

What are you?

Are you spirit or body? Equally? Or more spirit than body? Or vice versa.

As I’ve said in previous body and spirit posts, I have a suspicion God thinks both are equally important. Today I’ll give you another reason why I believe that to be true.

What about the greatest event in human history?

Remember the Resurrection? After Jesus was resurrected from the grave, He appeared to the apostles and then to His other disciples in bodily form. In such bodily form that He tells His disciple Thomas to touch his nail-punctured hands and put his fingers into His lanced side to touch Him, really know that it is He—Jesus—returned from the dead and restored to life. Thomas is so overwhelmed by just seeing Jesus in the flesh that he doesn’t seem to need to do those things, even though he previously claimed he’d have to do them in order to fully believe Jesus had come back to life.

the facts—

Jesus’ spirit was rejoined with His body. He walked with the disciples; he ate with the disciples. He demonstrated a perfect, fulfilled melding of body and spirit by enjoying bodily activities and also performing a disappearing act when He suddenly departs from the disciples he joined while they walked on the road to Emmaus.

What others think—

Some religions that claim to follow Jesus believe His resurrection was purely spiritual, with no real body component. Whatever body we saw seemed to be a figment of our imagination, or maybe something the Lord willed His followers to see. I’ve never gotten them to explain that idea so it’s comprehensible.

I don’t see what the point of that kind of resurrection would be. It doesn’t make sense. Not with the promise of our own future, post physical death resurrections God talks about in Scripture. Jesus had a point to prove, a promise to fulfill.

And a future promise to foreshadow.

Jesus’ resurrection was a literal conquering of death. It was real, it was tangible, and it held a promise for our own futures. It is the hope we look forward to, the end reward for a well-run race. Being spiritually and physically reunited with Him to enjoy eternal life.

The Resurrection displayed the power of the spirit and its eternal existence. But I don’t think that fact negates the body’s importance.

While our spirit does return to the Lord upon our physical death, the story doesn’t end there. Scripture indicates there is much more to come.

NEXT WEEK we’ll explore that more-to-come truth.

Meditation points—

Until then, I invite you to take a moment to explore the following questions:

Why do you think it was so important for the disciples to see Jesus in the flesh rather than just “feel” or experience Him in the spirit?
What do you think went through the disciples’ minds when they actually laid eyes on a fully (in body) resurrected Jesus?
What difference would it make for you to see a loved one resurrected in the body rather than just in the spirit? Do you think Jesus knows the important of that to you and wants you to experience it, like He made sure the disciples did?

Enjoy pondering these questions until next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Andrea A Owan

The Basics of Theism and Deism—What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

A lot of people have had tremendous influence on how we think about things and approach life. Great thinkers have loudly voiced their thoughts and developed philosophies or worldviews . Some are optimistic, and some are so pessimistic you wonder how and why anyone would want to go on living!

Today we’re returning to our overview of some of the worldviews that have shaped men’s minds and hearts, and subsequently our children’s and the world’s. And even music. It doesn’t take much listening to some of the heavy metal lyrics to discover that many of these young men and women are devoid of hope and are profoundly depressed about and frustrated with life.

As we go through these views, think about whether your thinking and reasoning has been influenced in any way by them. We’ll cover two or three of them a week.

In the beginning—

It doesn’t take too much studying in history to realize that all ancient civilizations had some kind of worldview that involved worshiping a god or multitude of gods. Or nature. It’s only been fairly recent that people have dismissed the idea of a creator and universal ruler and gone out of their way to make sure god is removed from the public square, or education.

For our discussion, we’ll look at several God-focused worldviews: Theism and Deism.

Christian Theism—A Christian Theist believes that an omnipotent God exists and He has authored a Spirit-inspired and man written work called the Bible that is the final authority on life and living it. (Notice I didn’t say it is the final authority on how everything was and is created. It is not exhaustive in that regard.) This Bible contains precepts and laws upon which man should base society and living. Hence, God and the Bible have a real, significant and lasting impact on our lives.

Theism—A person who calls themselves a Theist might be referring to a Christian definition, or they might be a non-Christian theist who believes in a god or many gods. Because of this, it is extremely important to define your terms when you’re having a discussion with someone about “god.” The God you’re discussing and referring to might not at all be the god they worship or follow. They are not all the same.

A person who says they believe in and follow Jesus, but doesn’t believe in the immaculate conception of Him, or His resurrection, certainly doesn’t believe in the same Jesus as someone who believes those things.

There are some religions that identify as Christian, or Christ followers, but they believe that Jesus was really Satan’s brother, who was able to rise to the level He did because He was able to live a perfect life on Earth. They also don’t believe in the incarnation or that Jesus was the God Jehovah. They think all men can become gods, if they live a perfect enough life on Earth.

And there are others who believe that Jesus is the Archangel Michael, come down to Earth as God’s son to fight the battle. They also don’t believe in a true bodily resurrection, but see it (as the Gnostics did way before them) a spiritual one. They don’t believe Jesus is God incarnate, and they think only 180,000 select individuals will go to heaven. The rest of the followers will spend their eternity here on a redeemed Earth.

You can see that it’s critical to know who you’re talking about and define your terms.

Deism—Some of the founding fathers of the United States could be classified more as Deists than Theists. A Deist believes there is an authoritative creator, God, who has authored the Holy Bible, which is the source that should be used to guide men’s actions and governments.

A Deist knows that God was once omnipotent, before and during creation.

But they believe that once God finshed all of His creating, He decided to take a back seat in the affairs of men and, instead, distance Himself from the world and His creation. Hence, not be involved.

To them, the world can be looked at as a clock, once created by an intelligent being, but a clock that has been set on autopilot, more or less. Man is left to go it alone and figure out how the clock works and go on living.

They believe that you can know God only through reason and observation of nature, but not through a personal relationship, revelations, or miracles, which they would regard with skepticism.

Some do and some don’t believe in an afterlife. And among the believers of it, there is varying opinion.

If you’d like to do further reading on that subject, see this discussion posted on the Church of the Modern Deist website.

And you?

Which worldview would you ascribe to, or have you combined them in any way, leading you to have a melded or divided worldview?

NEXT WEEK: Romanticism and Naturalism (Can anyone say Tchaikovsky or the Disney movie, Pocahontas?)

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Dawid Zawila

7 Lessons Learned From a Near-Death Experience

If you had a near-death experience (NDE), what kind of lessons do you think you’d learn from your heavenly visit? Lessons you’d eagerly tell others about once you’d returned to the land of Earth-dwellers.

Would it be the incomparable beauty of Heaven? The exquisite reuniting with friends and loved ones who’d gone ahead of you to their heavenly reward? Would you want to be able to see and describe what Jesus, and God look like?

A personal experience—

Dr. Mary C. Neal, an orthopedic/spine surgeon—who says she experienced a NDE—wanted to share the lessons she learned from her experience and does so with thoughtfulness, cogency, and grace in her recent book 7 Lessons From Heaven: How Dying Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life.*

I first read about her account in Guideposts’s Mysterious Ways magazine a couple of years ago and found her experience intriguing. As a fellow health professional, I appreciated her honesty about being a pragmatic skeptic, which initially kept her from telling her story. Then I heard her on Eric Metaxas’s Show (radio program) a couple of months ago and was drawn to her gentle grace and humility. So I jumped at the opportunity to hear her speak in person at Tucson’s Good Friday Breakfast program on March 30.

She was just as humble in person. She didn’t pretend to be a theologian; she only told what her personal experiences were. And she understood where the skeptics were coming from, having been one herself before her NDE event. I snatched up several copies of her book.

Book overview—

In the beginning of the book, she gives a brief recounting of the Chilean kayaking accident that took her life and sent her on a journey to heaven. Her original book, To Heaven and Back: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, covers this event in detail. After an overview, she intertwines her story with the lessons she learned.

One big lesson is that she still had work to do here on Earth—one of them being to tell her story, which she initially dragged her feet on doing—even though she didn’t want to leave Heaven.

Another insight the Lord gives her is that her precious son will die early, which did happen. (I’m not spoiling anything here; she gets to that event early in the book.)

I don’t know if I could handle being given that kind of information. I’ve heard people the premonitions they’ve had about losing one of their children or loved ones, but it takes a pretty incredible person to deal with it the way she did. Yet, it almost seems as though God gave her that information to prepare her heart for the event, which itself was a merciful blessing.

Some lessons learned—

Some of the priceless, life-altering lessons Dr. Neal learns are:

Life Goes Further Than Science—which was a big surprise to her, and will be to many to others
Miracles Are Always in the Making—even though too many of us dismiss that fact
Angels Walk Among Us—even though we might not know it
God Has a Plan—even if we can’t see it
Beauty Blossoms From All Things—just as Scripture says it does
There is Hope in the Midst of Loss—here, she speaks eloquently and emotionally, with the authority of experience

Then she explains how we can all live with absolute trust in God and our heavenly future. And it’s that living in absolute trust that she told us at the Good Friday Breakfast changed her life and way of living more than anything else. Trust. I plan to print that out in HUGE bold lettering and tack it on the wall of my study, so I am confronted—and comforted—by it everyday. It’s something I always need to be reminded of.

Are we physical beings with spirits, or primarily spiritual beings temporarily clothed in physical bodies?

This question would be a great discussion all by itself, but I won’t tell you in this post what Dr. Neal’s assessment is. I’ll save that for you to mull over and then read about in her book. You won’t be disappointed.

The answer could profoundly change the way you view, and live your life!

Another plus in this book—

Dr. Neal has a “Reading Group Guide” with some great chapter questions, so you might want to consider it for a Bible study or book club read. I know it will challenge some of your perceptions about theology, life, death, the afterlife, miracles and Heaven.

But isn’t it great to be challenged! It’s something the Lord does to us all of the time.

Until next week,

Happy Reading!

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo courtesy of Google Images

*You can learn more about Dr. Neal at: drmaryneal.com