The Fundamental Blog

Most of us know this as one of our most time treasured hymns, and it is. Beyond that, though, it is a part of God’s character that we can not dismiss off-handedly, and one that deserves to be forever closely held within our hearts. I have been in circumstances recently that have entirely overwhelmed me to the point of tears by the realization that the tasks set before me were utterly beyond my capabilities. I had been in prayer for long months looking for a certain path to chart my life’s course, asking that the proper opportunity be set before me and that all other doors be closed so that I might not err in the making of the choice. I am reminded of an old bromide which warns, “Be careful what you ask for; for you may surely get it.”

The specific task is unimportant, and the surroundings immaterial but the point is that God is ever faithful. He can not be anything less. If any faithfulness exists, anywhere in the realm of creation, (and I know that it does), then the origin of that faithfulness can only come from the fount of all good things, God the Father. Since all good things come from our Father in Heaven, it should be easy to see that whatever God allows to come to us in the way of provision must necessarily be drawn from His own unlimited store. Faithfulness is no exception. The Psalmist tells us, “Your love, Oh Lord, reaches to the Heavens, your faithfulness to the skies,” Psalm 36:5, NIV. How can we, mere mortal men, hope to measure the vastness of the skies? How can we ever hope to understand the vastness of the store of God’s faithfulness?

Even though we are heirs through adoption of the riches of the kingdom of God, and even though He has promised that He will never leave, nor forsake us; at times we can only see the obstacles through our own eyes and somehow neglect to see how God may be growing us in our faith by the solutions he is about to deliver to us. This is exactly where I had found myself. But I cried out in prayers of utter anguish, from the breaking strains of an empty heart, “Please God, carry me through this trial which you have set before me.” I had no hope but in the faithfulness of the Lord.

It may seem to some that this is almost like testing the promises of God, or that I was somehow impugning the Word, but it was actually the opposite. Some years ago I saw a movie with Michael Keaton titled, “Gung-Ho.” In the film, Keaton’s character is trying to accomplish an impossible goal and calls upon the Japanese factory owner to come and count the units completed for himself. The plan was that by working while the count continued, they might have enough extra time to reach the goal before the counting was finished. The factory owner confronts Keaton saying, “I understand you are questioning my honor.” Keaton replies, “I was not questioning it, I was depending on it.” This was what I did with God’s promises.

I believe, in that casual way we tend to sometimes accept doctrine, that God will never bring us to a task that He will not enable us to complete. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:7-8 NIV. I was to be tested on a particular ability that I had consistently failed in practice, and the consequence that hung in the balance was that I would not be allowed to complete my training. In my desperate plea I called upon the honor of God’s Word to stand in the place where I could not, “God, how can you have chosen this path for me only to allow me to fail?” It didn’t make sense to me. But God heard from Heaven and did not allow me to fail, and though He used my arms and legs and hands to do the required task; it was not me moving them.

I was not questioning the promises in God’s Word as much as I was depending upon them. And He sent an angel. As I sat at the table at lunch break I noticed that the young man next to me sat down with his Styrofoam container of carry-out bowed his head and offered a prayer before his meal. I commented that I was having a terrible time completing the task at hand and he said, “Try doing this, it worked for me.” I went out, and though there was little time to try the suggestion, I prayed once more, “Lord, if this is Your will, and I believe that it is, then take me and use me for your glory because if the task is going to be completed, it will only be possible by Your hand.” I passed the test and moved on to the next phase. I only saw my angel one more day and then he was off to another place to continue his own training, but I yet hope to meet him one day on life’s highway to thank him again for being the messenger of God to one who was entirely empty and broken.

Hebrews 13 begins, “Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” To read these two verses now is so very different to me than in all the times before; Where once it was only a nod and a, “Yeah, that could happen,” it has become a blinding reality that I can only compare to Saul’s conversion on the Damascus road. This proves to me how a simple exchange of goodwill, a very little thing in mortal terms, has the potential to be the revelation of the glory of God in the movement of His hand in our lives. Our little becomes much when God is in it.

“Great is Thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning in Thee,
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not,
As thou hast been, Thou shalt forever be.”

God works so many miracles in our lives that we never even bother to recognize that it astounds me that He continues to give of His endless grace to ungrateful creatures like us. Did you awake this day? Give praise to the Lord that He chose to display through you one more day, His glory! Give that comment of compassion, that scrap of hope, that crumb of understanding to the one you encounter because, who knows, it may be you that God has selected this day, to be the messenger of His compassion through a random act of kindness - don’t keep it to yourself.

It seems, not at all odd, that in Heaven we will all be of such a character that we will routinely act in ways that better our neighbor and glorify Christ Jesus. But to start acting in those ways here, is to be doing the kingdom’s work today. This is work that needs to be done here. In Heaven we won’t need to go out of our way to act kindly, with love and compassion; we will have been changed, we’ll already be doing it! Here, right now today, the love of Christ in us needs to be displayed in a world of chaos and darkness. Tell the geeky pimply, teenager how sharp they look, you know that they feel self conscious. Let the woman at the grocery checkout know that you noticed her earrings or smile or that you like the shoes she is wearing, it might be the Word of God shining into a dreary, dark day and it could change her whole world.

There are many things we can point to and say, “Look, here is the glory of Christ, out Lord, Saviour, King, Creator and friend.” The real question is, can Christ point to you and say, “Look and see the glory displayed?” God, Christ Jesus, is faithful; He can be no other way, but we must choose whether or not we will act in faithfulness and be the imitators of Christ that Paul exhorts us to be. When you pray, do it in His will, in the name of the Son and believe in the faithfulness of the Lord to act in our lives. He will! When we allow His glory to be lived through us, THEN… we are living…

All for the Glory of Christ



Postscript - This is thanks to you Shaun, Class # 654. God bless you and keep the shiny side up… Fundamental Charlie

The question is; Will we be able to recognize each other in Heaven? Overwhelmingly, it seems that the consensus answers, “Yes.” But is it correct to assume that preponderance of opinion equates to the truth of Scripture? I believe that we will know one another in Heaven, but I must admit that I am hard pressed to make the case from Biblical chapter and verse. There are many innuendos, and we can certainly make well founded extrapolations, but I find nowhere that the Bible says, “You will know each person in Heaven as though they were here with you on earth.”

As I read the passages that are commonly used to make the case in favor of Heavenly recognition, I question the validity of the presumptions made. The phrases, “rested with his fathers,” or, “gathered to his people,” don’t actually say that the one resting, (or being gathered), recognizes the souls he is now among as being the same ones that he knew on earth, or that they are known in the same, familiar, way. It seems to be open to interpretation and it could be that they merely ended up in the same place. If one considers their earthly ability to recognize others, they might conclude that we will not know anybody when we arrive in Heaven, any more than we knew anyone on earth when we were first born here. We had to learn to recognize people here, even our own parents; couldn‘t it be the same way there?

Even in the telling of the rich man and Lazarus, (in themselves), the case can not be proven that the one in heaven recognizes anyone. It is apparent that the rich man recognized Lazarus and Abraham, but it does not say that Lazarus recognized the rich man. Is it possible that, as a condition of eternal torment, those in Hell are allowed to recognize others while those in Heaven are spared this pain? Is it possible that In Heaven we learn to recognize one another as we exist there, but not necessarily as we knew them here? If the story ended with only the rich man and Lazarus it might be so, but what about Abraham?

Abraham is unmistakably one of the Biblical patriarchs, but he was still only a mortal man. In Heaven, Abraham was able to recognize that both, Lazarus and the rich man existed in the same identities as they held on earth. Abraham knew that the one had received good things in life and the other bad things. So here we have a regular run-of-the-mill human, now in Heaven, who recognized others in Heaven as they had been on earth, and also remembered their earthly lives. I believe this to be a most telling evidence that we will know one another in Heaven. This is not to say, however, that we will automatically know everyone in Heaven.

I suppose that it’s possible that we will know everyone by some form of divine ability, but to be honest, I doubt that I’d know Paul if I bumped into him in a phone booth, unless I had been introduced. I wonder if perhaps we might know those whom we knew; learn to know those who went before us, and, (since we have the programs in hand at that point), know all who would follow. I really can’t say. I do think that a case can be made that since God gave us the ability to know each other here, there is no reason to think that we will have fewer abilities in Heaven.

This is similar to the question of whether or not there will be pets in Heaven; God populated this world with animals, why would He exclude them in Heaven? When God created the earth He made it a perfect place. Man messed it up by his prideful disobedience prompting God to curse the ground, but before that, it was very good. I believe that the new Heaven and earth will be as perfect as this one started out being. Really, how could God make anything substandard, how could God‘s perfection be anything less than absolute perfection? Before you throw the fallibility of man into the mix, keep in mind that we were made with the ability to execute decisions perfectly; we just made poor choices. It’s a little like a well made watch. If the watch doesn’t keep time, you can’t blame the watchmaker because you chose to neglect to wind it up. Besides, in Heaven we will all have been changed so that the failings of mortal man will not be an issue.

Another interesting jumping-off point for the case in favor of Heavenly recognition is found in Revelation 21:12. Speaking of the new Jerusalem, the city’s gates are described as having the names of the twelve tribes of Israel written over them. This would seem to indicate that someone up there has the ability to sort out the tribe of Dan from the tribe of Judah. I believe that this ability is not one which will be the exclusive providence of God.

Whenever we find the Saints returning to earth after their departure, it seems apparent that they maintain their identities and are recognizable. When king Saul had the witch at Endor summon up Samuel, God allowed Samuel to return, and be recognized as Samuel. On the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah, they seemed to chat it up as though they all knew one another well enough. It seems as though it pleases God that we should each have our own, unique, identities in this life and I can find no proof to indicate that we should have fewer attributes in Heaven. If God finds it pleasing here, how much more should He be pleased with it there? If recognition serves God’s desires for us on this earth, I can imagine no reason why it should not be at least as useful in Heaven.

Some commentators will, at this point, challenge the reader to find anything in the Bible that says we will not recognize each other, and hold that out as some sort of conclusion that the opposite case must be true; that we will. I don’t buy it. For me, that kind of logic is as useless as , “Since the Bible doesn’t say there are no aliens, there must be.” OK, maybe yes, maybe no; it isn’t important for us to know that in order to live the life God has allowed us to have. I do not believe in aliens, but I will not use the Bible as the proof of that belief simply because it doesn’t mention them. I think that we need to look at the spirit of the Word and not only the letter.

God has bestowed upon us a marvelous existence, (which we messed up from the get-go), and there is nothing in the spirit of the Word of God to indicate that we will have an existence in Heaven which is any less glorious than the one we now have; to the contrary, every revealed picture of Heaven in the Bible is one of surpassing glory, of unimaginable beauty and peace. I can only imagine the wonders that are stored up for us, but even so, I do not allow these imaginings to dominate today’s life. It is my walk with Christ that I find keeps me busy.

I know that tomorrow will take care of itself. It is as much as I can do, (usually more), to just do the things I know need to be done, not do the things that I know I should avoid, and do my all to stand fast in the faith of our Lord Christ Jesus. I take great comfort from Luke 7:29, “For I say unto you, Among those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” KJV. I find comfort in knowing that even if we were to climb to the heights of fame, wealth, glory and prominence in this life; still, to be least in the kingdom of Heaven will be to exceed even that!

To wonder about the things of Heaven is fine and I would not rebuke anyone for dreaming, after all, is it not God who allows the dreams? I have no doubt that Heaven will be so far above our wildest expectations that to consume one’s self with the nature of our existence there is futile. It is more than enough to know that the lowest soul in Heaven will be greater than anything we can hope of imagining in this life. Will you recognize your relatives in Heaven? Do you want to? If so; sure, why not? If not; OK, whatever turns your crank. The truth is that we can not understand the relationships in heaven from an earthly mindset, when we get there we will have been changed and we will love everyone as brothers and sisters. You will not be who you are now, and your relatives will not be who they were when you knew them.

While this is a fine topic for a sunny afternoon daydream, it is most certainly a secondary issue and no more. It is far more important that we deal rightly with one another in the here and now. We need to live the life of Christ in us before the world so that they might see and wonder at what they have been missing. We need to help when we can, pray at all times and esteem others better than ourselves. We need to run the good race and finish, having reached the goal, that we did it…


All for the Glory of Christ