Heaven Today, Heaven Forevermore

Scripture: John 14:1-4; Revelation 22:1 – 5

Theme: Heaven

Title: Holiness Destination – Heaven Today, Heaven Forever

Grace and Peace Today from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

I want to talk to you today about your faith journey and where that faith journey is taking you. I want to talk to you today about your current situation and your final destination. In other words, I want to talk to you about your walk of Holiness and Heaven – Heaven Today and Heaven Forever.

I. Each of Us Has Our Own Individual Faith Walk

Each one of us here today and everyone all over the world that is alive today (or that has ever been alive) has their own individual faith walk with the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. It is your own. It is personal. It is intimate. It is unique. It is not like anyone else’s – there is no one like you so there is no one that has the same walk with the LORD as you do.

No one else may understand it. In fact, no one else may even appreciate it. But it is yours.

The Apostle Paul put it this way:

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” – Philippians 2:12 – 13 (ESV)

All to often in the Church we like to see uniformity. We like to see sameness or evenness (homogeneousness). We like to be able to figure things out by putting them in all kinds of different boxes. And then we want to be able to understand all the little boxes.

We may have even thought or said at one time or the other things like:

“Well, a real Christian does this or that”.

“And a real Christian doesn’t do this or that”.

And while there are some major brush strokes that are in all of God’s masterpieces the truth is each masterpiece of God’s is unique, distinctive and special. And we are all one of God’s masterpieces.

We all have the major strokes of Repentance, New Birth, Water Baptism and the Infilling Presence of the Holy Spirit. After all, that is what it means to be a Born-Again Disciple of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38).

But aside from those facts the LORD has made us all different people. We have been given different gifts and we have different talents. We all have different personality quirks and we have all be raised in somewhat different environments. Even if we are a twin, we are different and our walks with the LORD will be different.

It is essential that we be aware of this and remind ourselves of these facts. Other wise we will find ourselves doing one of two major things:

+We will tend to judge other people on how well we think they are walking in faith and then compare their walk with ours or what we want to call the NORM of a Christian Walk.

OR:

+We will tend to judge ourselves on how well we thinking we are walking by comparing our walk with another person’s walk.

Either way, we will be using one another as the measuring stick and that is not what God wants us to do.

While we can see some major brush strokes that are the same in every person’s God given Masterpiece, the truth remains that God paints all of us differently. We serve a very creative and amazing God. He has made us unique and each one of our walks with the LORD is therefore unique.

Moses’ walk with the LORD was not the same as Abraham’s walk with the LORD. Abraham’s walk with the LORD was not the same as Gideon’s walk with the LORD. Gideon’s walk with the LORD did not look like the walk that Esther or Sarah had with the LORD.

I think you get the point. Each of us have this amazing, wonderful, special, unique and individual walk with the LORD. Each of us have different gifts and talents that color that walk. Each of us have been raised in different environments that color that walk. But each of us can enjoy a wonderful repentant, baptized and Holy Spirit filled walk with the LORD JESUS CHRIST!

II. Each Person has their Own God Given Mission

In Jeremiah chapter eighteen the Prophet Jeremiah is sent to a Potter’s House. He was to watch the potter and learn some valuable lessons. One of those lessons was that each vessel God’s makes is special and has a special task. One vessel is not the same nor does it have the exact same special tasks as another.