Dec

I Can Only Imagine

Posted by: Sonny in Eternity, Heaven, Responsibility

heavensthrone I can imagine it now.

I have been in line for a while now and have heard many wonderful things said about those in front of me. One by one they present themselves before the throne. The King of Glory looks down on one of them with a smile on His face and declares, “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully served me by giving your time, your labor, and your financial aid to spread the gospel to what used to be third world countries.” There are many cheers from those gathered to witness the proceedings.

Then another moves forward and Jesus says, , “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully attended many in the hospitals and nursing homes, giving them a lot of love, joy and happiness in their pain and suffering.” Again, a loud procession of cheers and applause occurs.

The person directly in front of me moves forward and the Savior of the world again declares, , “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully ministered to and fed the homeless, the addicted, and the abandoned in my Name for many years while you lived in that previous world.” The cheers are as expected.

Then it is my turn. I move forward, not really ready because I have heard a lot of things that I never did. Feeding people, visiting people, loving people, these seem to be the things that have gotten the accolades so far. I stand and look on the awesome visage of the Creator of all things and He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully fought to keep the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.”

Suddenly the throne room erupts. There is so much noise and cheering that it is deafening. It is much louder than I had heard before and seems to go on and on. Then, I simply cannot contain myself any longer and start jumping up and down, shouting and crying at the same time.

This goes on for a while and finally the Judge of all creation raises His hand, a huge smile still on His face, and the room starts to quiet down. Finally He beams down at me once again and asks, ” How, exactly did you realize what was really the most important thing I left you to do, when so many did not see it?”

I’ll stop here. If you are reading this, I guess it shows what a glutton for punishment I am. It means I actually posted it, knowing that some will disagree and maybe take it as a belittling of their convictions. This is not what this is about.

I was just reflecting on all the thoughts and commentaries out there that I have been reading about Christian political activism on many sites and the current hot topics on my own site about duty and I had this vision. But I am pretty sure, no, I am certain; it did not come from God.

Again, this is not a slam on anyone’s personal convictions. I just realize that I need to look deep inside myself and actually determine if my convictions, and where I put all my strengths and focus my efforts, really do honor our Lord. And do they mean anything at all in the eternal scheme of things?

Merry Christmas and I

Love you all

Tags: Christ, Christmas, Creation, Creator, Faith, Giving, God, King, Love, Pain, Personal, Self, Servant, throne room, War, witness

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 3:15 am and is filed under Eternity, Heaven, Responsibility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 comments so far

Connie

Sonny,
We talked a little about this last night at the Christmas Party. For several years now I have known my strengths and truly believe in my heart what God has put me here to do. He has opened the door of opportunity for me to do just that and I finally walked through it. I have never thought about what He might say to me when it’s my turn to stand before the Throne until now. I pray that He is pleased.

Everyone has different strengths and He tells us what they are if we just listen with our hearts. Our strengths can be anything from studying and teaching God’s Word, praying, listening, taking a political stand to uphold God’s laws, being a missionary in another land, ministering with music or song, or using our life’s experiences to minister to those who stand where we once stood. I feel that no “calling” is more important than another. They all work together for the Kingdom. I believe that He does have a particular task for each and every one of us. It is up to us as whether we do it or not. Each one of us must listen to our hearts and do the task He has assigned to us; NOT what we think is more glamorous or important (leave the flesh at home).

Whatever God’s calling is on our lives, we must do it boldly and without fear to the best of our ability. I feel it is my duty to give Him my best, whatever it is.

Merry Christmas and I
Love You Too

December 19th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

Tammy

Every time I hear those words, “I can only imagine”, my thoughts are drawn to what it will be like.
Will I hear those words , “Well done”?
Surrounded by His glory, what will my heart feel? Full, I am sure!!
Will I dance for Jesus, probably, knowing me!!
Will I stand still in awe of Him? Absolutely!!
Will I sing Halelujah? Most definitely!
Will I fall to my knees in reverance??
Will I be able to speak at all???

I can picture myself doing it all!!!
If I can only imagine now, that is okay since my imagination takes me there!!!

Thanks for giving me yet another thing to think about. I want my efforts to honour my Lord and Saviour!!!

Merry Christmas

December 19th, 2008 at 2:59 pm

Wayne

Another line of thought…..

We are standing in line together waiting

As we move forward we can sort of hear what is being said. We can hear what our brothers and sisters have used as their strenghts to better God’s kingdom.

And we had no idea. We had no idea brother “Tom” was a former rock band singer who could reach the youth through his testimony or sister “Jane” was a talented sketch artist who could reach kids.

As Connie said everyone has different strenghts, are we ready to jump in. We should encourage everyone, no matter how small you might think it is, it is something. And that something might be the very thing someone is looking for. And that someone might be the next ………….

December 19th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

Sonny

Agreed.

We all have something God wants us to do, someone He wants us to reach, and it is why we have so many different “stories”.

love you all

December 19th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Justin A

Israel was told to instill in their children the miracles God performed for them. There are many instances of our founding fathers giving praise to God for miraculous intervention in the war against the British. It is interesting that we now cannot teach our children in our public schools about this. It is interesting that we do not teach in our public schools that the Supreme Court declared that the United States was a Christian nation. It is interesting that we do not teach that the Federal Government wrote into law that we should teach Christianity in the new territories. It is interesting that our public schools do not teach that many of our founders declared that our laws were based on the principles of Christianity. It is interesting that our public schools do not teach that the people who wrote the “secular” Constitution that “prohibited public Christianity” went to their respective states and participated in crafting their State constitutions which specifically called for professed belief in the Christian God as a requirement for holding public office. I believe we were given an informative lesson by the installation of the monument recognizing God in the Alabama courthouse. Installing the monument should have been not even a big deal. The big deal was bringing the power of the Federal Government to remove the monument and then the Alabama government removing an elected official from office for his public acknowledgment of God. Someone thought it was very important to remove any vestige of acknowledgment of God. Are we letting down where God specifically instructed otherwise?

December 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 am

Justin A

“[R]eligion, or the duty which we owe to our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and this is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
–Virginia Bill of Rights, Article 16

Just happened upon this

December 23rd, 2008 at 7:36 am

JOHN

when these documents were written we as a country were alot more alike than we are now. You could expect that anyone that you ran into would have similar beliefs to yours. this cannot be said anymore. I dont know what my daughters teachers believe so i dont want religion tought in their class room. Even if they profess to be christian they can believe alot differently than we do in our home. In a diverse community as we have now if you tought about one religion you would have to give equal time to them all.

December 23rd, 2008 at 10:15 am

Sonny

Glad to see that you must be getting caught up a little in your work, Justin. Welcome back. Wish I had some work also.

Good comment John

Love you all

December 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am

Justin A

I’m not caught up. All work and no blog…..

I don’t see anything wrong with teaching the one true religion. My point is still the same. God instructed Israel to teach their children. We don’t. He didn’t say to give equal time even though there were many religions back then also. God said to teach about him and the history of Israel and God. We are not following the example that God gave.

We don’t have the option of teaching no religion. They will teach your children something about morality so we should strive to see that they teach correctly. There is no moral vacuum. This subject is a good example. By removing all references to God from public schools most people think the United States was set up to be secular and people don’t know the points I made about how the country operated when it was first founded.

Most people don’t know that pornography is not protected by the first amendment. The first amendment applied to political speech. We have not been taught and so we don’t know. We are very quickly headed for a society where the Bible is considered hate speech. Christians are supposed to be salt and light. We were not supposed to be influential only in our little group.

December 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 pm

Sonny

If it don’t start in our little group then it want go very far.

The reality of true, loving relationships, teaching and discipling the very things you want back in schools, in small gatherings, that then spread to others, seems to me to have the best chance of actually bringing about life altering change.

Allowing all the focus to be placed on school curriculum will do nothing but teach on some academic level a certain amount of facts. Facts will never change the heart.

I know you place a lot of emphasis on all this, and that is okay, but if all the people who are so concerned with prayer in school, for example, would get on their knees with their kids instead, then something concrete and life changing for those kids would actually happen.

This is not to say you never did any of this. But the basic nature of people seems to be self-centeredness and laziness. If we can get the schools to do it for us, then we want have to. If we all did what we should in our own homes, then it would not matter what the schools do.

Love you

December 24th, 2008 at 12:28 am