Jan 23 2024

Some things I know about heaven… and some things I don’t know


How much should I be expected to know? Not much. The following Bible passage discourages me from getting all bent out of shape because my knowledge of heaven is …well…limited.

9 But as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 ESV)

If no one has seen it, no one has heard all about it, and no one has even imagined it, I’m not too disappointed that I’m not an expert on heaven. Having said that, God has given us just enough of a glimpse to peak our curiosity and cause us to be keenly interested. You will see in the remainder of this writing that my “knowing: is mixed with my “ignorance”. I will try to be honest so if you discover an untruth or something that needs correction, by all means drop a comment and tell me. (I have thick skin)

Some things I know

God Made it. In the first verse of the Bible we learn that God made the earth and the heavens in one swoop. In one sentence earth and all above the earth was created. But what is it and where is it? Well that’s something I don’t know. I told a friend recently that “it’s North of here” pointing upward. I believe there is the heavens (plural) which consists of what we can observe with our eyes and the best telescopes from the most distant platforms. I saw three Bible verses that mentioned the “heaven of heavens” and Paul mentioned “the third heaven”. I still don’t know where it is and to say more about that would be futile.

I was recently thinking that if someone told me to point toward heaven I would go outside and point my finger upward toward the sky and maybe I would be right. However, if a guy in Australia was asked the same question he would do the same thing i did, but because the earth is a round planet we would be pointing in exactly opposite directions. Go figure…

It’s God’s headquarters

The throne of God is there, angels are there, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is there. He sits on the right hand of God. Does he sit all the time or is that figurative? Jesus is still God/man. He is still in the flesh and he is there. In Matthew 6 the “Lord’s Prayer” is recorded. I think it is more correct to call it the “disciples prayer”. But Jesus was warning his disciples to not be hypocrites by praying, giving, and fasting to be seen of men. And in that discourse he suggested how his disciples should pray beginning with “Our Father who is in heaven” . Then later in the prayer “…thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. So there is no doubt that heaven is where God is. Mysteriously He is also everywhere else too. Think about that for a while!

Wherever the location of heaven is, it’s temporary!

Yes, you read that correctly. At some point in the future God is going to destroy the earth and the heavens and move his kingdom to the new earth he will create.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice saying “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, or the former things have passed away”. (Revelation 21 1-4 ESV)

Wow, what a packed 4 verses. We can learn much here.

God will not be distant any longer. He will live with his people

There will be no more sea

The new city of God will be the new Jerusalem

There will be no tears

There will be no death

There will be no mourning

There will be no crying

There will be no pain

All former things have passed away

That is quite a lot we can know about heaven but there is more…

According to none other than Jesus

There will be no marriages, no weddings in heaven.

“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven (Matthew 22:30 ESV)

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the husband you love so very much will not be your husband in heaven. My deceased wife Jeanine Kay will be only a sibling. I see so many posts by friends on social media who are longing to be reunited with a deceased spouse. I suppose they have never read this passage or maybe didn’t want to believe it. But there it is. Marriage is only for time. It does not exist in eternity.

Shocker alert! Will we be gender neutral? What does “as the angels of God in heaven” mean? I don’t know. I know they are spirits, there is some sort of ranking, but we know little about the angels who worship God for ever. We know that some of them can be seen by humans when they want to be seen. In that way they are like Jesus in his resurrected body who is both body and spirit. He could easily disguise himself so that his closest friends didn’t know who he was until he wanted them to know. He could appear in a room without opening a window or a door and he still had scars from his crucifixion.

We will be “like” him

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not year appeared, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2 ESV )

I will not venture a guess as to what that means but we will be more like the resurrected Jesus and less like the people we are now. That’s for sure. I think one fact that hinders our understanding of things in the future with God and his people is that we unconsciously attempt to imagine with the resources we now have. Our sight, sense of taste and smell, what we see, what we feel, and what we hear. Jesus in his glorified body transcended those limits and in some ways I don’t yet know, we will too.

We will be outside the limits of time and space

There will be no night, no sun, no moon

There will be eternal day with Jesus being the light

We will know our friends and family

We will know all of our siblings

On that day when my salvation is complete, finished sanctification, my love and affection will be perfect like that of Jesus. I will be just as pleased to see your mom as mine. I will love a sibling from a tribe I have never heard of as I will my dearest friend on earth. Try to imagine loving and being loved by God and all his people. Heaven sounds better all the time!.

The past is gone!

The last part of Revelation 4:21 says “…and the former things have passed away”. I have heard people talking about Aunt Betty looking down on a wayward boy hoping he changes his life. Or Grandpa is watching his grandson’s little league game from heaven. No, sorry, it isn’t happening. If I could look back on earth how could I not grieve for lost souls and friends who fell on hard times? It would be impossible.

No Sin, only joy and peace

Try to think of the most blessed time of your life, the most fun, the most fascinating, the most euphoric, the greatest peace you have experienced, the most beautiful thing you have ever seen or heard. Now multiply those experiences times infinity and you will not come close to the experience of living with Jesus in a place he prepared for you.

I know how you can get there.

There are many differences between you and me but in some ways we are the same. We are going to die. That is a fact that can’t be ignored. We are sinful people. God hates sin. To get into God’s heaven something must be done about our sinfulness. Only perfect righteousness will be accepted. Every human other than Jesus Christ is short of the mark. God loves you and made a way for you to be counted righteous like Jesus.

” For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV) God put all your sins on Jesus and he died like a common criminal, in your place, and for you. If you simply accept the final and finished work of Jesus for you God will count you righteous based on the perfect obedience and perfect sacrifice of Jesus alone.

11 “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11-13 ESV)

The “who” in these verses can be “you”. Will you receive him? Will you believe on his name? Repent (change the direction of your life toward Jesus) and put your trust in Jesus and he will make you his own child. Not by the will of man, nor of human performance, but wholly of God.

Royce Ogle
Granbury, Texas

Oct 12 2023

Understanding the Bible Here and There


I can’t pin point the time when I began to be aware that Bible truth must be understood in context, but not the context most people think of. “Context” is a broad subject. Most of us are familiar with context regarding Bible passages. It is essential that we know what was written before and after the text we are focused on. But, there are other layers of context, like cultural, historical, geographical, and even linguistic.

However, more important than context is understanding that the Word of God reveals truth to us and that there is a huge difference in what I call “truth on the ground” and “truth in the air”. For example, in Acts 2 we can read Peter’s famous sermon concerning the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

The truth in the air is this. “This man (Jesus) was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23a)

The truth on the ground is this. “and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” (Acts 2:23b)

Peter correctly accused these Jews of murdering Jesus. They conspired with the Roman authorities to have Jesus killed in the most inhumane way possible. This is the truth on the ground.

But, God planned the whole thing. That is the truth in the air.

Both truths are true but seen from different perspectives. One view does not in any way cancel the other. Both are God’s truth and you and I do not have the right to choose one over the other. Both are to be believed and trusted.

There are many seemingly contradictory truths in the Bible. Many people, when confronted by one of these occurrences chooses the option that seems most comfortable to them, the one that fits the frame work of their prior teaching. One believer will read a passage and try to explain away what they don’t agree with. One will tend toward “free will” and another from the same text will lean toward “election”. God does not give us the options to choose to believe only what we like and are comfortable with.

Believe the Bible, both the comfortable and the uncomfortable passages.

Grace to you,

Royce

Oct 4 2023

Love God Much?


On a day when the most religious of the Jews were asking Jesus questions and trying to trick him into saying something they could refute, and after stumping the Sadducees concerning the resurrection of the body another group, the Pharisees, challenged him. A lawyer asked a question, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment”. (Matt 22:36-38) How am I to love God? With all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind! (I must pause here to praise God for his lavish grace and mercy that I so desperately need. I fall way short in the loving God department! I’m thankful that Jesus loved Him perfectly for me. This is one of many sins Jesus atoned for by dying for me.) The ultra religious Jews listening to Jesus were surely just as aware of their personal short comings as I am. But Jesus raised the bar even higher. He said,  “39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:39,40) This isn’t a suggestion, it is a “You shall!” Jesus set the bar out of reach for every hearer and everyone who reads His words thousands of years after He said them.

In 1 John 4 about half the chapter is about God’s love for us, and how we are expected to love. The chapter ends this way, “20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:20,21) Bluegrass artist Rhonda Vincent had a hit song based on these verses, “If you don’t love your brother you don’t love God”.

How is your love life? Not with a girl friend or boy friend or spouse, but with God? How about the people at work, your neighbors, your in laws? According to this teaching you and I can measure our love for God by how well we love others.

What is love anyway?

Love isn’t only an emotion, it is much more. In fact the kind of Love the prior verses discuss is not possible unless a person is born from above. The sort of love Jesus taught about is a gift from His own heart. We love him because He first loved us. We didn’t love Him first. No, it is far more than an emotion. You can sit in your favorite chair and have nice warm, fuzzy feelings about someone, but that isn’t love. I suggest that love is very much like faith.

Both love and faith are grace gifts from God to undeserving sinners, you and me. So here is the way I see it.

  1. Faith and Love are intellectual. A person must know some facts to have either. The gospel is communicated with words, it is when we hear the good news that “faith comes” (Romans 10:17). You and I were not born with faith it is given. Love is ‘a’ fruit of the Spirit of God, given to those who have been made God’s children through the person and work of Jesus.
  2. Faith and love are emotional. Both are supernaturally implanted in us so that we experience joy, sometimes expressed with tears, or some other emotional response. Facts imprinted in our brains touch our emotions. We are emotional creatures. We hear the good news, the facts of the gospel, and our hearts are warmed. It makes us experience joy. But both are more.
  3. Faith and love are volitional. To experience faith or love in action we must make a choice to act upon what we know and what we think if possible. At some point I must consciously act. I have decided for Jesus and I say it with my lips, I confess Jesus as my Lord, I not only say it but I show it. In water baptism we retell the gospel and identify with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And, my language, my morals, the sort of people I associate with and want to be with changes. And, my love for other believers, Jesus, and yes, even those I don’t like very much grows and deepens.

Loving God is trying the best you possibly can to do what He says. Loving your neighbor is looking out for his best interests, helping when you can, encouraging when you are able, treating that person as you want others to treat you. I think the way I love those about me is me loving God. I don’t see how loving people and loving God can be separated.

Some of the good gifts God gives to his own are listed in Galatians 5:22 and first on this list is “Love”. 1 Corinthians 13 the love we are given is clearly defined.

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

In Christ,

Royce Ogle

May 19 2023

Baptism – Who, What, and When


I am eons short of being a theologian. I am not a professional anything. I teach a class sometimes, I’ve preached here and there, but never as a regular paid preacher, so I have a right to speak as a non-professional, a layman if you will.

I am very familiar with the several nuances about water baptism discussed ad nauseam by “sound” brothers in sermons, lectureships, journals, books, and blogs. I could recite most of the verbiage with the best of them if I so desired. In this article I’m not going there, I believe previous articles have stated the church of Christ’s traditional views and values well. What I propose is that we take a step back and see if we can learn from our mistakes.

It is clear that water baptism is in the Bible and that everyone who would follow Jesus should be baptized. It is also clear that baptism if for new believers. I have always loved the story of Philip and his encounter with an official from Ethiopia. Philip was a Jesus preacher. (Acts 8:5) He went to the city of Samara and preached Christ to them and he baptized those who believed. (Acts 8:12) So Philip had a track record of preaching Christ and baptizing those who believed the message.

A heavenly messenger instructed Philip to go in a certain direction and when he did he came upon the Secretary of the Treasury for Queen Candice, of Ethiopia. This distinguished gentleman was riding along in his chariot reading from Isaiah 53:7,8. Philip hopped on the chariot and beginning with that passage he “he told him the good news about Jesus.” (Acts 8:35) About the time Philip finished his gospel lesson they came to some water and the Ethiopian wanted to know if there was any reason why he couldn’t be baptized. They stopped, Philip baptized him, and Philip went on to his next preaching assignment. (Acts 8:38-40) What a grand story!

I’m pretty sure Philip was not a member of the church of Christ. Had he been, after the man asked about baptism he would have tried to “set up a study” at a later time. “Maybe when you are up this way again we can study baptism together, I don’t want you to make a mistake.” No, Philip just baptized him. That was exactly what Jesus had instructed disciples to do, make disciples and baptize them. Why isn’t the way Philip did it sufficient?

To this non-professional, it makes no sense to delve into a theological/doctrinal study with someone who is a brand new believer (or according to the traditional view, a lost person). In my view those studies are not for non Christians or new believers. It’s fine for brothers and sisters to discuss the many views about the efficacy of baptism, is it an ordinance or a sacrament? But for someone who just heard the good news about Jesus and has said he believes it’s time to baptize him, it is not a fitting time for a detailed Bible study. Anyone can say in two or three sentences what needs to be said, even assuming the candidate knows absolutely nothing about Christian baptism.

Jesus said as we disciples make disciples, we should baptize them. The Bible never says what words are to be spoken at the time of the actual baptism. To baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not mean even those words need to be said. Those words mean that we are to baptize in the authority of those names. In the same way to pray “in Jesus’ name” does not mean to say those  three words at the end of every prayer. And the Bible never says what a person is to know about baptism before he is baptized.

What the person about to be immersed believes about Jesus and his work for sinners is of utmost importance. He does not need to know everything the Bible says about water baptism before he is baptized. I told my small grandsons they should wash their hands before they eat, every time! I did not try to give them a course in biology, I just insisted that they wash their hands. If they did what I asked they had clean hands when they touched their food. A person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and is baptized will have a clean heart, without a course in Restoration theology.

Perhaps we should take a fresh look at the gospel. It is not a stated theory. It makes no command. It asks no questions. The good news about Jesus is an announcement! It is very, very GOOD NEWS! Our task is to announce the good news and leave the results to God. It is what Jesus has already accomplished for sinners that reconciles men to God. Jesus offered his faithful life of obedience, his body of flesh to be crucified for us, ungodly everyone, and he was raised out of death to immortality so that his life can be our life and our future can be eternally with him. Tell it here, tell it there, tell it everywhere and baptize those who believe.

For Jesus,

Royce