Eternity is a Long Time

  Even though our faith can be summed up in one sentence – “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) – it is so deep as to be unsearchable. This means we can never fully understand all of what our faith in Jesus means. Of course, if we could totally understand it, then our faith would not be worth much. However, we often feel overwhelmed by the enormous depth of our faith. So, it is good to look at verses which summarize what we are to do with our faith. Some of these verses are: Luke 9:35 35  And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” Matthew 11:28-30 28  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.   29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   3...

  Shakespeare's 29th Sonnet - When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. William Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet is a wonderfully concise picture of a person who is mournful about their situation and then realizes, probably not for the first time, that there is great joy in the Lord.   This was not what I expected when I first read the sonnet.  I had never considered Shakespeare to be religi...

 

  [Some years ago, I heard a sermon with this story in it. This is my best recollection of the telling of that story. Dale Coparanis] Just outside the fence which enclosed some of the best apple trees in the county, grew a crabapple tree. This crabapple tree was a very prolific tree and produced much fruit. When some local kids came by they tried the crabapples and spit them out of their mouths. One of the kids said: “How can such a big tree with so much fruit have apples that taste so bitter?” So one day soon after, when the farmer was tending the irrigation around some of the apple trees, the crabapple tree started to cry. The farmer went over and said to the tree, “Are you crying?” “Yes,” said the crabapple tree. “I just want to have nice apples like your other trees. Perhaps if you were to let me share in some of the irrigated water then I could produce nice apples for the kids to eat.” “If that’s what you want,” the farmer replied. So the farmer dug a ditch to bring some o...

  One of the guys I'm mentoring who is in jail, wrote to tell me he is having some interesting issues regarding reading the Bible. First, he's being led to read the Book of Revelations which is a great book but not the easiest to deal with, especially for a fairly new believer like Clyde. What he says is interesting: "I've been in revelations for a week now I don't know what I'm getting out of it but I've went to other stuff like job and paul and James but something keeps telling me to get back to revelations.... sometimes I feel like I know what it means and sometimes I feel like I'm not getting anything at all ....I'm not going to lie I feel like I'll never learn anything from it" In the next email I received from him he said this: "hey dale sorry to bombard u with all of this but I find myself in the book of Matthew chapter 7 I think that I've been judging god on how I see things and not trusting gods judgment..... I don't k...