Hello, and welcome to Faith is Hope,
I’m Dave.
What comes after? Well, first we need to find out what comes first.
Have you ever gone into one of those all-you-can-eat buffets? You get your plate, go up to the serving tables, get something, and go back to your table, sit down, and eat. Then get up and leave, still hungry? No way. If you’re like me, you eat till you’re so miserable you can hardly breathe. So, have you ever gone to church, listened to the sermon that day, and walked away still hungry? Are you sitting on the floor begging for scraps from someone sitting at a grand table, in a big mansion, who drives expensive cars, flies around in a private jet, dressed in the finest clothes? These pastors, ministers, priests, religious leaders whatever you want to call them are nothing more than modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees.
Who made the rule that only people who get some college degree, and have a bunch of letters at the end of their name are able to teach the bible? Only they can interpret what God is telling us in his word? Look If you want to have a closer, more personal relationship with God, why in the world would you rely on someone else to speak to God for you? Do you think God needs someone to speak to you, or for some reason God isn’t able to speak to you himself? I’ve got news for you. God spoke everything, everything into existence. So do you really believe that God can’t speak to you? God speaks to each of us all the time, but most of us don’t listen, so we can’t hear what God’s saying. Most of us have the world turned up so loud that we couldn’t hear God speaking to us even if he was standing right in front of us. But God doesn’t shout, he whispers. That way you have to turn down the noise of the world.
What’s happening now is, you’re being led away from God. You’re being starved. You’re so hungry, so thirsty right now that no matter what it is, as long as it appears to be from God you’ll eat it and drink it. Well, a lie may look like the truth, but a lie can never be the truth, and the scraps that we’re being fed from the pulpit will never be manna from God.
Right now, we’re watching what God created collapse. Compare what you see now in America and around the world. Look at the evil, the perversions, that lack of God, and the attack of faith. There’s really no difference between now and the time of Noah, Sodom, and Gomorrah. But we were told all this and much more must come to pass before the return of the Son of Man. Yes, it’s going to be bad, and it is going to get worse. I guarantee it. But I also guarantee that those who live in Christ, even those who are killed for his namesake though they are dead will live forever with him in heaven with God the Father.
So what will it be like after? If I asked you; what does heaven look like? What would you say, how would you describe it? Oh, it’s so beautiful, streets of gold, filled with love, but these are all things that we’ve been told. The truth is, if you haven’t seen it, felt it, heard it, smelled it, or taste it, you can’t describe it. When God healed me in 2016, I was shown a small part of heaven. Now I want you to understand. I didn’t see God, and I didn’t speak to Jesus, but I was in the presence of God’s love. His mercy and grace. I saw it, I felt it, I heard it, and I received it, and even so, if I knew every word in every language ever spoken past, present, and future. I still wouldn’t have enough words to truly describe heaven.
So what’s it going to be like? After Christ’s return, and after Christ and his army of angels defeats satan and his demonic minions, God will reestablish his kingdom here on earth, in the New Jerusalem. And for one thousand years God and his kingdom will reign. Now, I want you to try to imagine the following. Ready? No hate. No hunger. No pain or suffering. No crime; no theft, murder, or assaults. No sickness, no death. No fear. Only love, mercy, and compassion. Pure and perfect. See that’s the part that none of us can imagine. I mean we all dream about not having the sickness, the pain, and suffering, or any of the other terrible things that take place now. But none of us can even begin to imagine perfect. We understand Good, we can imagine great. But perfect? No, because none of us are perfect and nothing we think, say, do, or create is or ever will be perfect.
What’s coming is perfect. A perfect world. A perfect society. A perfect time between God and his children. And just remember that no matter what that image looks like in your mind, it’s still not perfect. It may be great, but it’s not perfect. So whatever you’re imagining, you can multiply it by infinity, and you’ll still be a little short of perfect. But if that doesn’t give you something to hold on to, something to be hopeful of, then you need to put your trust in the Lord and learn to walk by faith. Having faith in something or someone greater than yourself isn’t as frightening as you may think. When you look up at the night sky, you try to take in all the stars, planets, comets, asteroids, and everything else, it’s humbling. Now think about the one who created all those stars, planets, comets, asteroids, and everything else. Kinda takes your breath away, doesn’t it? That’s called awe, and that’s right where each of us needs to be. We need to be in awe of God. In awe of His power, and his love for us, his mercy, blessings, grace. And we should be humbled by the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on that cross.
There’s so much happening right now around America and the world, and it’s all happening so fast that it’s really hard to keep up. And that’s alright, it’s okay to feel overwhelmed, but remember this,.nothing that overwhelms us is greater than God. So, if there’s something more than you can handle, give it to God. He really wants to take it from you. Just remember, that you can’t give God something, and keep holding on to it. If you want God to take it, lay it at the altar and walk away. Don’t look back. Just know that God has it, and God will do what he knows you need to be done. It may not be what you want, but it will be what you need. And right now, each of us needs is to be fed the word of God, not the scraps of man. We need to stay in His word, day and night. Because none of us knows the hour a thief will come. We need to be lifting up our brothers and sisters in Christ, and sharing God’s word with those who haven’t heard God’s truth. The seasons are changing, the seeds have been planted, the crops have grown, and soon it will be time to harvest that crop.
Hey, I’m Dave – Join me next time when I talk about “Truth” – and until then, I’ll see you at the Rest Area.
