Imagination

How is your imagination? Do you ever daydream? What do you imagine?

Former Beatle John Lennon wrote a song titled Imagine in the early 70's. The melody is beautiful, and it is one of the most popular songs he ever wrote. But while the melody may be beautiful, the lyrics paint a different picture. Listen to what Lennon had to say.

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try;
No hell below us; above us only sky.
Imagine all the people, living for today.
Imagine there's no country. It isn't hard to do;
Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.



One of Lennon's ideas was that the concept of God, Jesus, and religion got in the way of world peace; and in the final analysis, caused more bad than good. Karl Marx thought this very same way, and so have many other so-called brilliant philosophers over the centuries. Their idea was that if you rid the world of its ideas about God, Jesus, and religion, then the world would become a utopia. People working together in peace and perfect harmony would soon solve the world's problems.

When I put my imagination to work, I see something different. When I imagine no heaven it is a scary scene. As bad as things are in this world, imagine what it would be like if there was no God. If you spend much time imagining these kinds of things, it's frightening. I can't imagine peace without God. Imagining the world without God is depressing. Let's imagine something different.

I like to imagine the future. Growing up I liked reading popular science magazines. I also liked reading books by Isaac Asimov. His vision of what the future would be like intrigued me. One of my favorite things to imagine is what heaven will be like. Put your imagination to work. What do you imagine heaven is like?

Does the Bible have anything to say about our imagination? The Bible tells us in Ephesians 3:20 , "Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine". I can imagine a lot of great things, but God can do infinitely more. Put your imagination to work. Whatever you imagined, God can do infinitely more.

I like to think about God. I study the Bible to learn more about him. Can I really understand him? In Isaiah 55:8,9 it reads "My thoughts are completely different from yours, says the LORD. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts".

God's ways are far beyond anything we can imagine. It seems my imagination is useless when it comes to God. One of my favorite texts is 1 Corinthians 2:9 where is says "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him".

Do you love God? God has prepared something so incredible that no human has ever even imagined it. There are people on this planet that have great imaginations. Look at some of the wonders of this world. The imaginations of artists, writers, architects are often spectacular, but they cannot imagine anything like heaven. Have you ever imagined what heaven will be like? Whatever you imagined doesn't even come close to what God has actually prepared for you.



Do you want to go to heaven? Why do you want to go there? I will tell you why I want to go. In John 14:1-3 Jesus tells us "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also".

Jesus had prepared a place for me, and he wants me to be there with him. That is why I want to go to heaven. I want to be where Jesus is. Jesus has also prepared a place for you. Do you want to be there with him? What will it be like when we see the place that Jesus has prepared for us?  I can only imagine!



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Like A Child

A few years ago my friend Richie Owens spent a year of his life writing and recording an album. I remember his enthusiasm as he would bring me new songs to listen to. Songs just seemed to pour out of him as he focused on this project. One of my favorite songs that he wrote was titled "Like A Child". Richie ended up choosing the song as the title track of the album. Here are the lyrics

I remember the story from when I was young
Where Jesus was teaching one day
And there were some little ones come to see Him
But the men tried to send then away
Little did they know this gentle young man
Was the one by whom all things were made
He decided to make an example of them
To explain something He had to say

Let them come unto Me
For such is the kingdom of God
Come ye also like them
For unless you do you'll be lost
We have to trust fully in Him, not ourselves
Rely on his word before anything else
We can grow great in stature
In wisdom and health, undefiled
But be like a child

These are hard words in the world which we live
When dog eat dog's putting it mild
'cause some of the things Jesus asked us to do
With this world just can't be reconciled
But we know he has made the way for us
And we know he has conquered the grave
And we know that His grace is sufficient
So that all who will can hear Him say

Children come unto Me
For yours is the kingdom of God
You have conquered the world
For you followed My staff and My rod
You trusted fully in Me not yourselves
You relied on My word before anything else
And you never grew to big to stay in My arms
All the while...Welcome home, child

The other day as I was listening to the album (it is still one of my favorites) I started thinking about what Jesus actually meant in Matthew 18:2 - "Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven".



That really is a blunt statement. If I don't become as a little child I will not be saved. It is very important that I understand what Jesus meant. My salvation depends on it. As I was considering this question, an important characteristic of little children came to mind.

One characteristic of little children is that they look up to the adults around them, especially parents. They don’t want to be left alone. They feel secure when they are with their parents. That is the way a Christian should feel about God. We should want to be with God.

In our relationship with God, we adults are in the same position as our children, except that we don’t know it. We sometimes behave as if we are running our lives, and that we are in control. We feel capable, and sometimes to such an extent that we feel we don’t really need God.


We need to know, that we are not in control. Like a child, we should always be looking up to someone for security and for help. We need to remind ourselves that we cannot handle life with our own wisdom or capabilities. In Proverbs 3:5,6 the Bible tells us "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.



This childlike quality was brought home to me by a story that my daughter told me about my granddaughter. While my granddaughter was attending Vacation Bible School, one of the activities that she was involved in was making a scroll like people used in Bible times. When she finished her scroll she told her teacher,"this is for Jesus. I'll give it to him when he comes to pick me up".

That is the kind of childlike faith that we all need to have. We are just waiting for Jesus to come pick us up so we can go home, and we have no doubts that he will be here soon.

Here is a slideshow that I put together with the Richie Owens song "Like A Child".

Lists

When I was growing up I loved to make lists.  I kept a list of the books that I had read from the Longmont Public Library.  I kept a list of baseball players and their statistics.  Each week I would make my own Top 40 list.

Do you make lists?  What kind of lists do you make?  Today your lists may be on your computer or your phone, but I bet you make lists. Lists keep us organized.

I recently read a story written by Christian author Max Lucado.  On a plane he was seated next to an attractive young woman.  The young woman was very nervous about flying, so he took out his Bible and read some reassuring passages.  As they talked she told him that she was a believer once when she was young.  Max asked her, “Do you believe in heaven?  "Yeah."  "Do you think you’ll go there?"


She looked away for a minute and then turned and answered confidently, "Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be in heaven." How do you know?"

"How do I know I’m going to heaven?" She grew quiet as she formulated her response. "Well, I’m basically good. I smoke less than a pack a day. I exercise. I’m dependable at work and," she counted each achievement on a finger, "I made my boyfriend get tested for AIDS."

That was her list. By her way of thinking, heaven could be earned by smoking less and safe sex. Her line of logic was simple: I keep the list on earth and I get the place in heaven.

Most of us are a lot like the woman on the plane.  We feel that we are basically good.  We are decent hard working people.  We have a list that we feel qualifies us for heaven.  Your list may not include cigarettes or AIDS, but I know you have a list.  There is a purpose for the list: to prove we are good.

In Romans 3:20-22 Paul tells us, “No one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it.  But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.  We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.

Well, so much for lists. So much for being "basically good."  If no one is good, if no list is sufficient, if no achievements are adequate, how can a person be saved?  Wouldn’t you like to ask Jesus, “How can I be saved”?  Jesus was asked that very question.

We find the story in Mark 10:17.  “Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

Isn’t that the question you would like to ask Jesus?   It is very interesting that Jesus gave the man a list.  In verse 19 Jesus answers, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”


It seems that Jesus is saying that to have a list is OK.  It seems like we should have a list.  When the man told Jesus that he had done all of these things, Jesus said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”  The story has a sad ending.  The man was OK with keeping his list, but he was not willing to follow Jesus.

No matter how long or complete your list, there is always one more thing you need to do.

I recently read a story of a woman who for years was married to a harsh husband. Each day he would leave her a list of chores to complete before he returned at the end of the day. Clean the yard. Stack the firewood. Wash the windows.  Sweep the floor.  Bake the bread.


If she didn’t complete the tasks, she would be greeted with his explosive anger. But even if she did complete the list, he was never satisfied; he would always find inadequacies in her work.

After several years, the husband passed away. Sometime later she remarried, this time to a man who lavished her with tenderness and adoration.

One day, while going through a box of old papers, the wife discovered one of her first husband’s lists. And as she read the list, a realization caused a tear of joy to splash on the paper.  "I’m still doing all these things, and my husband doesn’t have to tell me. I do it because I love him."

You can’t make a list long enough and complete enough to satisfy the requirements for eternal life, but Jesus hasn’t asked you to.  All he wants is you; All of you.  He wants you to be madly in love with him. Head over heels, do anything for him, in love with him.





In John 14:15 he tells us, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”. Not because that will guarantee us salvation, but because we are so much in love that we want to please Jesus. If we truly love Jesus, doing the things that will please him will not be a burden. They will be a joy.

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Are You Experienced?

On March 5 there will be a new Jimi Hendrix album released titled ‘People, Hell & Angels.’ It is likely to be one of the most important archival releases of 2013. The album is being advertised as featuring 12 new and unreleased Hendrix tracks. Why is there so much interest in Jimi Hendrix over 40 years after his death?

James Marshal Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington, on November 27, 1942; an American of African, European, Cherokee Indian and Mexican descent. An unsettled home environment made Jimi spend much of his early years living with his grandmother, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, in Canada.

His mother died when Jimi was 15, about the same time that Jimi began to take a serious interest in music and playing the guitar. When he was 12 he got his first electric guitar - the instrument which shaped the rest of his life.


Jimi Hendrix is considered by many to be the most influential and talented electric guitarist in history. He achieved worldwide fame in 1967 playing at the Monterey Pop Festival, then headlined at Woodstock in 1969. Hendrix is widely known for and associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, most notably LSD. Various forms of sleeping pills and speed fueled his "stop and go" lifestyle throughout his career.

The most controversial topic however, concerns his alleged abuse of heroin. The Hendrix family, along with a portion of his friends and biographers, emphatically maintains that Jimi was never a heroin user. An equally strong number of associates and writers, including former band mate Noel Redding, insist that he did use heroin.

Jimi's life was cut short at the age of 27. In the days that lead up to his death witnesses said that he was obviously high on drugs and he had a lot of cannabis on him. He was in a terrible state, highly nervous. He spent Wednesday, September 17, 1970 looking for drugs, while visiting houses around London.


In the early morning hours of Thursday, September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix was found dead in the basement flat of the Samarkand Hotel in London. Hendrix died amid circumstances which have never been fully explained, and the exact details of his death will probably never be confirmed. He had spent the night with his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, and likely died in bed after drinking wine and taking nine Vesperax sleeping pills, then drowning in his own vomit.

What a sad story. What a terrible waste of a young mans life. He had rocketed to stardom in 1967 with the release of his first album "Are You Experienced". In the title song he sang “Are You Experienced”? “Ah! Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have”. Young hip listeners at that time new what he was asking when he sang “Are you experienced. Ah! Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have”. They knew that he was asking if the had used drugs.

I am asking you today, Are you experienced? You don't have to answer that. But really I want to ask you are you experienced? I'm not Jimi Hendrix. So I'm not asking about drugs. But I do want to ask you are you experienced? Have you experienced the grace and love of God? I can only hope that you have.


I know that I have received one gracious blessing after another. The greatest blessing is found in Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". What a blessing. I know that God loves me because while I was still a sinner Jesus died for me.

In Ephesians 1:7,8 Paul writes "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and understanding.”

God's grace is a wonderful gift to humankind. Grace is God's love freely offered to us. We do not do anything to "earn" it. I hope that you take time each day to reflect upon how you have experienced God's grace in your life.


SUNSET ON RICH MOUNTAIN NEAR MENA, ARKANSAS

I have experienced so much of God's love and grace in my life. I have so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful that Jesus died for me, and that he has promised in 1 John 1:9 that if I confess my sins he is faithful to forgive my sins. I am thankful that I have such easy access to God’s word, The Bible. I am thankful that I was born into a Christian family. I am thankful that I live in the USA; that I have a wonderful spouse who loves God, and that I have been blessed with loving children and grandchildren. I am thankful that I am able to live in a rural area. What a blessing it is to live in Mena, Arkansas. You can see that from God’s abundance I have received one gracious blessing after another.

What about you? Have you experienced God's love and Grace? Are you experienced?