Heaven Testimony

During the month of November, I (Dan) have had/will have the opportunity to share a sermon with the hospital staff on each Monday in the chapel service. This is a new experience for me. Usually when I'm in front of a group I'm discussing a medical topic or sharing pictures and stories from a mission trip. So far it's been a good time of stretching and challenging me to get into the Word. Speaking in Spanish is an added challenge. If you're interested, I'll post an English version of some of the sermons here on the blog. The first is pasted below.

Heaven Testimony

Today I want to share a story about a period of major growth in my life. It was a time when I first began to think about and look forward to Heaven. During my last couple of years of college I reached a point where everything in my life seemed to be going in my favor. You might say that everything I touched at that time turned to gold. I had been a committed Christian for many years and I felt a calling to serve God on the mission field. I had always done well in academics, and I was getting ready to graduate from college with honors, ready to go to medical school. I was athletic and a pretty good baseball player. I was entering the final baseball season as a captain of the team. I had muscles and yes, I even had hair. I had lots of friends who had been close friends for years. My family was loving and supportive. I was in love with Kristina Roth, who was an amazing beautiful girl who would later become my wife.

During the college years we had chapel and worship three-four times each week. One of my favorite worship songs during that time was “I’m Desperate for You.” The song talks about how God is the air we breathe. He’s the bread that we need every day. As I reflected on my life, I wondered, “Am I really desperate for God? Do I really need Him like the air that I breathe?” Things were going so well in my life that is was difficult for me to know the answers to those questions. So, I began to pray, “Lord, make me desperate for you. Help me to see how much I need you.”

The Lord began to answer that prayer within a few months. The first thing that happened was that I did not perform well in my final year of baseball. Something that I had worked so hard for was now in the past, and there would be no more chances to make up for that failure. Soon after that, I began to develop tension headaches as a result of the scoliosis that I have in my back, and I could see that my health wasn’t what it used to be. Even my hair began to fall out. I still had my relationship with God, with my family, and with my girlfriend Kristina, but I began to fear, “What if I lose those things too?”

In the midst of what I would later refer to as “my hard times” I left on a trip that I had planned to Central Africa. There I spent time in the operating room with a missionary surgeon. It was a great experience in medicine and missions. During that time God was digging really deep into my soul, bringing me to grips with some major issues. Daily I saw people just like me, some older, some younger, who had come to the hospital for help. Some of them got better. But many of them died of illnesses like AIDS, malaria, tetanus, and cancer. Not only was there illness, but I was also in the middle of a situation of political unrest. I knew that there were armed soldiers who could be lurking in the shadows. I felt surrounded by death and despair as I realized how short and fragile life really is. Alone in my apartment in the rural mountains of Africa, I was overcome with fear.

Finally, I had reached the point where I was desperate for God. He had answered the prayer that I had prayed a few months earlier in college. Psalm 103 says, “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” I understood that at some point I could lose my family, friends, and my very life. What would be left then? God had blessed me so much during my life up to that point. Blessings on earth are wonderful. They are special gifts from God. But I realized that I had been enjoying the blessings so much that I needed to re-focus on the One who had given the blessings. Because I was overcome with the fear of losing these blessings, I began to cling to God, who is the only one who will last forever. Yes, I was finally desperate for God.

I began to pay attention to my African brothers and sisters. Less than ten years before my trip there, there had been a massive genocide in that country, as the two main tribes sought to exterminate one another. As a result, there probably was not a single person who had not lost at least one family member or friend to a killing. Several had also lost their homes or their titles. Nevertheless, all the church services that I attended were completely full. The Africans loved to sing and dance for hours. Were they singing about how good life is here on earth? No. After going through such hardships, they were clinging to the hope that they would one day be in heaven with Jesus. Almost every song they sang was about being with Jesus forever in heaven. Jesus was all they had, and they were filled with joy knowing that they had Him. They had lost almost everything, but they knew that they would never lose Jesus.

Have you ever dared to think about your deepest fears? Do you ever worry about losing your life? Do you worry that your father, mother, husband, wife, or child will lose their life? Will you lose your house and your security? Will every blessing on this earth be stripped away at some point? There’s no doubt that God loves to bless us with wonderful things here on earth. I have a wonderful family and friends that I love, and many of you do as well. But the Bible clearly tells us that our focus should not be on the good things that we have in this life. In Luke 14:26 Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.” What does Jesus mean by this extremely powerful statement? It means that our love for Him is so strong that every other love pales in comparison. Even though we’re blessed here on earth, we should be longing for the day when we arrive to Heaven and we’ll get to spend forever with Him who we love so much.

How can I be so excited for Heaven if I don’t really know what it’s like? The most popular images of Heaven that I have seen today include lots of clouds and a giant pearly gate. After you have a conversation with St. Peter, you get to go into heaven where you will inherit your wings and halo. You will spend all your days playing music on your harp. Fortunately that’s not a completely true image of Heaven. Talk about boring!

So what is Heaven like? Pastor and author John Piper talks about how each of us has a deep longing for things that are great and beautiful. I’ve been to visit “El Pailón del Diablo” at least four times. The power displayed by the waterfall takes my breath away. I have a picture of Ken Griffey Jr. in my office. He’s one of the greatest baseball players of all time, and I’m proud of the fact that I’ve watched him play in real life. Who here wouldn’t love to sit in the locker room of Spain’s national team after winning the World Cup? That would be a chance to witness greatness. We all love to view original art and listen to beautifully-composed music. Why do we love to surround ourselves with all these great and beautiful things? We’re trying to fill the hole in our soul that longs for greatness. That hole will be ultimately filled when we see Jesus in Heaven. He is the maker of all the great things on earth, and He is more awesome than all of it.

Psalm 18:7-15 gives a description of God’s greatness: “The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them. The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of breath from your nostrils.” Now that’s a picture of a great God. When He shows his power like that, I want to be there to witness it.

Heaven is also communion with a loving God without the limitations of our sinful bodies. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a description of perfect love. Verse 12 says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” Because of our human imperfections, we don’t have the capacity to receive God’s love to the fullest. But when we get to Heaven, we’ll finally understand how much He truly loves us. We’ll understand why He gave up His son to die on a cross, for us. We’ll understand that He’s truly forgiven our sins, and that when He looks at us, He sees a perfect child, a perfect creation, an heir of His Kingdom. God wants us to receive His perfect love, and when we get to Heaven, we’ll be able to do just that.

When I traveled to Africa ten years ago, I was faced with my deepest fears. I became desperate for God as I realized how fragile my life on earth was. Then I began to understand what Heaven is like, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. I want to challenge you to examine your life. Are you blessed? Are you afraid of losing the earthly blessings that God has given you? If so, ask God to give you a glimpse of Heaven. Ask Him to help you to think about eternity, not just about this life that will be gone in an instant. Then, as you look forward to perfect communion with God, with His greatness, with his love, you’ll be able to say like Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “Dónde está, O muerte, tu victoria? Dónde está, O muerte, tu aguijón?” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” and you will live today without fear.