Vision after a pet died

A week ago my beloved Golden Retriever died.  He would have been 3 in a few days and his passing was not expected. I was surprised at the amount of grief I carry and wondered if it would ever lessen.  Yesterday during my quiet time the Lord brought this verse to mind:

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21:4).

This verse comes from a description of the City of God, the saint’s final dwelling place with God. The Lord continued, saying that all bonds of love will be unbroken there.  For, as sweet as love is here, that’s how much pain our loss is when someone dies.  But in the City of God we will have uninterrupted love.

Then I saw a vision of God’s City.  My heart swelled as I recognized people from other nations there (Rev 21:26). The vision brought focus onto several beautiful women with their small children, from India. Understanding was given that these women were Hindus who had come to Jesus at death.  This scene was pleasant and happy, and accompanied by the following verse:

“He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, through Whom He also preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” (1 Pet 3:18-20).

The Lord then said “Would I be so unfair?  After My resurrection, would I preach to those who did not know Me and ignore those now who die never having known Me?”

I understood that Jesus and the Father desire all men to be saved and walk in His Kingdom during their lives as this brings glory to both God and Man.  But He is not so unjust as to condemn to hell those who have never been preached the Gospel of Life.  Jesus has rescued many from prison on the death bed, for He is the best preacher of all.

Did I see my dog in the City? Yes I did.  I believe that the Lord gave me this vision so that I could taste of His eternal love.  Though my love for my pet has been interrupted on this earth, God chose to show me His eternal and far-reaching love, a love that we can hope on, that will be fair to all.  Amen.

Powerful Faith

God give each man a portion of faith (Rom 12:3).  Sometimes we find it hard to believe in those things that would make our faith successful on this earth.  One important thing to believe in is that the Christian is dead to sin, and alive in Christ (Rom 6:2-8). Most Christians are relieved to know their past sins are behind them, though they may struggle with their present sins.  Yet it is true: in Jesus we have power over our sins. 

There are things in our lives that circumvent God’s power.  At times sin may be more attractive to us than becoming a new person in Christ.  The cravings of our body, lusts of our eyes, and all that we can accomplish in this life (1 Jn 1:16) may seem better than overcoming sin.  When this is true, we lose the power of Christ in our lives, for we have been insincere in our longing to be like Him.

Jesus does not ask us for an acknowledgement of Him: He has asked us to be His Bride.  He gave us His Holy Spirit to prepare us, in holiness, to be like Him.  Jesus died so that we might live, and overcome the powers at work in us that bring spiritual death.  If we love our carnal nature and the world more than His life in us we will have a useless faith, and like the foolish virgins, we will be unprepared for a life with Christ.

The power of faith is believing first that we have died to sin and now live a new life in Him.  We must all put the love of the world and of our own personal lives behind us.  We not only overcome sin daily, but the powerful force of evil in our lives, satan.  We overcome him “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of (our) testimony” and do not love our earthly lives so much that we would cling to them when faced with death (Rev 12:11). This is our witness: Jesus gave us power over sin when He purchased us with His blood. 

Our faith should encompass Jesus’ provision for power over sin and over the love of the world.  Living each day, we will find ourselves choosing to embrace this new life in Christ, or turning away from it, back to our former way of living. It becomes a question of faith, then.  Do we believe unto salvation? Do we want to leave sin and the world behind? We cannot have the new life in Christ and our old life also.  Today let us be sincere in our faith, taking the power over sin as the greatest gift of all, for then our faith will find its use in changing us into His image.  And our faith will prepare us to spend all eternity with Him. Amen.

The tree of Life

God loves to give us rewards when we bear His fruit in our lives.  In Matthew 25 we read about a servant whose Master gave him talents to use.  Because of the servant’s faithfulness, the Lord put him over all He owned and said to him, “share your Master’s happiness” (Mt 25:21). Some versions say “enter into My joy.” The servant had yielded good fruit and the Lord wanted to share more of His Life with him.

When we have difficulties and trials it is easy to think that all our rewards will come in the next life.  “Surely this is a place dedicated to hardship,” or so we think. And “Where is that place of happiness, anyway?”

Besides the parable of the faithful servant, Jesus also spoke to John in the book of Revelation about faithfulness. We read that the Ephesians had not been faithful to God, losing their first love. Though they had “deeds, hard work, and perseverance” they had forsaken love (Rev 2:2-4). Their motive for serving God wasn’t grounded in love of God. Yet, if they returned to their first love, Jesus would give them the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Rev 2:7).  The paradise of God is also called a “pleasure garden” in the Persian language.  I believe it is the place of joy and happiness Jesus spoke about in His parable about the faithful servant. 

The Tree of Life is located in the place of God’s joy and happiness. By overcoming our tendencies to serve ourselves by doing works to be seen, we can enter into this place and eat of the Tree of Life. Or more simply put, if we are “religious” we will miss God’s joy during our trials.

There is more written about the Tree of Life in Revelation. Jesus invites the overcomers to come into the City of God, where the Tree of Life grows around the “river of the water of life.” (Rev 22:1-2). The Tree of Life bears “twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.  And the leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nations.” (Rev 22:2).

I believe God’s plan for us is to bear more than one kind of fruit. During each month, or season of our lives, God has some fruit for us to bear.  It may be wisdom, or knowledge.  It may be kindness or longsuffering.  But each season will bring forth its fruit in us if we do not leave our first love of God during our difficulties.  Since He offers the Tree of Life to overcomers as a reward for our faithfulness to His love, we should bear fruit from that Tree during the different circumstances of our lives.