October 10th, 2018
After the service on Sunday, we were talking with some friends. One of our friends had been the one who pointed out that the high tunnel was not where Melissa died, but where she met Jesus. I thanked her for giving us that perspective as it changed everything. Her husband said that after that discussion he had a picture in his mind about Melissa walking through the high tunnel door and Jesus was standing there, that he took her by the hand, laid her gently on the ground and took her with him to heaven. I looked at him and said, "That's exactly what I wrote on my facebook post yesterday!" I thought about that the last two days and then I texted him this morning. "Did you read my post before you said that? Did we talk about that before??" He said that he doesn't have Facebook and that the only person he had said that to before was his wife.....
WOW
So, does God care about little details? Is he interested in showing us compassion and mercy?
Look at what I wrote in my post on Saturday:
"As I stood near that spot where we found her, I could imagine that she had walked through that door and seen Jesus and He said, "Come, it is time." Then He took her body and laid it gently on the ground and took the real Melissa with Him into His glory. It was and is an awesome picture in my mind. I don't know if it happened like that and will never know, but I know that Jesus is the great Comforter and He loves us so much and wants us to be with Him out of this shadow of a life."
Maybe some of you are thinking, "Well that's nice. That husband really is clinging to his faith. I'm glad it makes him feel better." Or perhaps you are saying to yourself, "It's really good that he can imagine things like that. It is good for his healing."
It's so much more than that. God has orchestrated so many things through this. People are telling me that this has rocked their world and changed their lives. People are being drawn to pursue God like they never have before. My spirit has been bolstered and I have been given "peace that surpasses all understanding."
My family and I have been placed in a position to see the one that we love the most dearly in our lives literally step right out the back door and into eternity. It has forced me into looking at what I believe, or think I believe and asking myself the question, "Real or not Real?"
The Bible says that God is perfect and just and that He created all things. It says that because He is perfect and just, He cannot tolerate sin, so we are separated from Him by our sin. It says that the wages of sin is death - spiritual separation from God.
Real or not Real?
The Bible says that because God loves us, He made a way for us to be reconciled with Him. He sent His son Jesus, who was fully God and fully Man, to the earth to be born into this sinful world, but to live a perfect life. He voluntarily died on a Roman cross, taking the sins of the world on Himself and then rose again to life on the third day after His death. He stayed on the earth for 40 days afterwards and spent time with His disciples who had run away and hid after He died. They were so convinced that He was alive that they went out and turned the world upside down with this new "religion."
Real or not Real?
The Bible says that if we choose to believe in Jesus, that He forgives our sins because He loves us and because He is the only one who can. It also says that if we believe in Him and turn from our sin and follow Him, we can enter into that relationship with God and have eternal life with Him starting today.
Real or not Real?
The Bible says that for those who believe, nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death. That to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
Real or not Real?
There is plenty of empirical evidence to make a legal case in a courtroom that this is true. Plenty is out there to read which demonstrates this in very convincing ways. Before last week, I was pretty convinced and pretty firm in my faith. But now I know.
As I told someone a couple days ago, this has ripped down the barrier between the shadow of this life and the real life that we are meant to live. So, if it is real, I have to tell people about it because you need to know about it too. There is nothing more important. I can't imagine going through this situation without knowing, I mean really knowing, that Melissa stepped into Jesus's arms a week ago. She truly believed it and so do I.
Please let me know if you want to talk about this. PM me and we can kick it around. It is way too important to not decide if it is Real or not Re
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