Will I see you in Heaven?

I recently ended a topic with a brief prayer.. “May our words be true, may our actions be purposeful, and may our hearts be pure. So that we too shall walk with the guidance of the Lord, in the way of whose name we pray, Jesus Christ. Amen.” I would like to go deeper into those words.

I have stated before that simply believing in Jesus Christ does not make a person a Christian. How many people do we all know that profess to be of the Spirit, who act in ways of the serpent? I have read there are more than a billion Christians in the world, but how many will we see after the day of judgment? My thought…not many. I have heard many people say that the key to Heaven is to believe in the Son, and upon your death bed, atone for all your sins. I believe it is more. John 7:66..And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted too him by My Father.” How could a back burner belief (which is what I believe most Christians have), and a properly worded prayer be all that is needed to gain access to Heaven? Or all that is needed for God to grant us closeness to His Son? It isn’t. For God to grant us his blessing we must live by Him and His word, and when I say live…I mean more than just the external actions of our bodies. I mean live by having Him in our hearts, for He is the Spirit that gives true life. “It is the Spirit who gives life the flesh profits noting….” (from John 7:63). This reaffirms my belief that it is not in our actions or our thoughts that we find grace in His sight, it is in our hearts.

Let you words be true…if you say you believe…then believe. Last night I prayed for the first time…and my prayer was heard, and I knew it was so. When I say I prayed for the first time I do not mean to say that this was the first time I spoke with God, I have raised my voice to Him many times, last night I raised my heart and soul to Him. I felt the Spirit course through out my body, my extremities tingled with each word I raised. My heart raced, but was at peace, I felt as though I was weightless. And as I ended my prayer, two tears fell one each from each eye, so that there were two drops on the bench before me. My prayer last night was the single most moving moment of my life. It could be said I did not live before last night. My point? If you believe, you can feel it in your physical being, it is more than just a thought.

Let your actions be purposeful…Do not go to Church just to say you have gone to Church, do not give to the needy just to say you have given to the needy, do not pray, just for the sake of prayer. Do these things from your heart. Go to Church to praise His name, and to rejoice in the gift that was only His to give. Help those in need with the goodness of heart, so that it will be know only by He who judges, not so you can say “look it is I that have given the most”.

Let your heart be pure…I say again, that it is not in your actions or thoughts that you will find glory in the sight of God, it is in your heart. True belief can be felt in the physical being when you read His word, speak His word, hear His word, and raise your words to Him in a way that is from the soul…not the mind.

I leave you again with this prayer. May our words be true, may our actions be purposeful, may our hearts be pure, so that we too may walk with the guidance of the Lord, in the way of whose name we pray, Jesus Christ. Amen.
May you find glory in all that He gives unto you, may you find yourself blessed by Him, may we meet one day in Heaven.

William Wilkinson

This is true wisdom and knowledge of The Living God...

Can God create a rock that He can not move?

Can He create a light that He can not extinguish?

Can He create a child that He has not redeemed,
can not renew and will not restore to sight?

For any man to believe his free will or, anyone's power and will
can usurp the will of The Sovereign Spirit of Life...
well, that man has lived among profoundly ignorant men, who
have caused him to adopt a strong and deep delusion.

To be "Sovereign", means "to know when" to and "to know how"
to move ALL THINGS into His appointed change, even the thoughts of men.

His Will for us is fearlessly Sovereign, unlike our will;
His Kingdom of Heaven(s); nothing like our heaven of stagnant bliss
and desparation for rest.

Those who walk in His Spirit, walk in perfect peace.
They can see we're already there.

Brother i must say that your words truly moved me. There have been times when I have felt like i was praying just because I have been told that is what I must do. Then there have been times when like you I have truly felt the spirit . I use that tingle as my compass.

When I was wondering this world in search for a love that I did not even comprehend i knew i had found it when I heard the Lord's call on my heart. That tingle was there the day that I felt weak in the knees and knew that my creator was calling me to duty. I didn't know what my duty was at that point only that I wanted to be another vessel for the Holy Spirit. I wanted to show others the way out of the darkness that I had spent so long in.

I do have on thing I wish to point out to you. I believe you are putting limitations on what God can do. If you look at Matthew and read the parable of the workers in the vineyard which according to my Student Bible is Matthew 20: 1-16 you will see that Jesus teaches us that it does not matter whether you have been working hard in the fields since the very beginning or if you finally started at the very end.. God is no less generous. Now I may be reading it totally wrong but that is what says to my heart.

This might be because my grandparents were Jehovah Witnesses for most of their lives and then just before they died they were lead to leave them and embrace the Bible's teachings. Maybe I need to believe that in the end God spoke to their hearts and told them that they sought Him all there lives but they truly were not on the right path. I'm just glad that God was generous enough to offer them one last chance before they left this earth.

Anyway those are my thoughts on your post. Whether I am right or wrong I can not say. I only know what I feel in my heart.

God Bless!


P.S. To anyone of the Jehovah Witness faith I do not mean to bash on you. I was only stating what I believe happened to my grandparents based on what they told me. God Bless and may we all remember that as long as we keep Jesus Christ as our focus we can never go wrong..

It is true, when I wrote this post I was feeling a bit like there was more than just absolution at death to be welcome into the new covenant. I do not neccesarily disbelieve that statement at this point in my journey with the Lord, but I can now give reason for my thoughts. The repentance that we are called to by our Savior, Jesus Christ, is one that should be life changing. I do not find these words in the Gosples at first glance, but I do find them in the words of the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sinthat grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:1-4). Truely Paul tells us in these words, that repentance brings death to the sinful life we once led, and as Christ was risen into new life, so are we.

I do agree with your interpertation of the workers in the vinyard. You are correct, the worker who labored only an hour recieved the same wage as the one who labored all day. However with both workers...both labored. I believe if one waits untill death to repent it is for one of two reasons. Either A: He has never been a true believer, but just in case he better repent, or B:He is a believer, but figured he would walk the easy road through life, knowing he could be saved at the last second. For these two persons we can safely say that person A will not see the glory, For person B, we can look back to the words of Jesus...The gosple according to Luke 13:24-30 (it's a long passage, I'll let you read it). With either person A or person B, sure it is possible that the Lord will welcome these last minute converts into the Kingdom, but I find it hard to believe that repentance at death is life changing, or truely from the heart and soul.

All that being said, as far as your grandparents are concerned. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Jehova's witnesses. I have spent a great deal of time speaking with and learning from them. There are many ways in which thier ministry matches that of Jesus' or Paul's. They travel from door to door (and up here in the small towns of New England, from town to town), spreading the good news of the new kingdom. I have found that other than a tradition or two here and there, there interpertation of the Bible is very similar to ours. They use the name Jehova where we would use God. It was in fact actually a pamflet left by the witnesses that drew me to this walk of life. Your grandparents worked for the Lord and the glorification of His kingdom more than just in the end, more infact than many do thier whole lives. If we look into all different denominations of Christianity, we can find differences in everything from the known day of the Sabbath, to weather or not a priest should marry. These differences come from different interpertations of the word, or from focuses on different parts of the word. For example:

Catholics believe that a priest should not take a wife. They feel it is the word of God that tells them not to, and they are right. In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians this topic is covered 7:8 states "But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am." And if you stop reading there...you will believe you should not marry, however 7:9 "but if they can not excersise self control, let them marry, for it is better for them to marry than to burn with passion". Now considering a recent controversy in the Catholic church, it may have been wise to focus as much on the later of those two passages as the first. (please no one take offense, I do not categorically place all Catholic priests in the light of few). One difference for Jehova's witnesses is that Christmas is not celebrated, and in a snece it should not be. The foundation of Christmas as we know it began as a pagan celebration, surely there is justification in turning from this activity. However for modern Christians, this time of year brings out the true spirit of the kingdom, so therefore should not be ignored (anything with the power to bring out the good in people must be good for people).

So I guess I've rambled quite a bit, but some of these thoughts have been on my mind for a while. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, they are always more than welcome in these forums. God's blessing be with you, I look forward to hearing more from you as time goes on.

William

Now I was not bashing or speaking ill of the Jehovah Witnesses. I think they are very devoted to their faith. I just don't agree with a couple of their little quirks as I like to call the differences in denominations.

Such as the accepting of blood transfusions, and wanting you to sign over everything when you are about to die. Grant it that allows them to support their church long after they have left this world, I just think no one should demand that you sign over your worldly possessions. Not your family or your church family.

Please forgive me if I have offended anyone.


God Bless

Jake

I don't think your coments could have been found ofensive, I just wanted to pipe in my two cents on Jehova's wittnesses. Be at peace.
William