What's Heaven Really Like? - Devotional

This is the devotional Pastor Dan passed out during his sermon on 11/18/07. There are two different versions, one for high speed internet connections, and the second for dial-up connections.


Devotional - High Speed

Devotional - Dial-Up

What's Heaven Really Like?

What happens when we die? Will I be scared? Will Jesus truly come take me into heaven? Will I see a blinding light? What will heaven be like assuming I make it there? Will I look like I do now just glorified? What does that mean? Will there be age differences? Will I really not be married? What about those harps and clouds? Will I be singing worship songs the WHOLE time? What is heaven really like?

This past week, I thought I had finished a series on Stephen in Acts 7. However, my wife pointed out that I did not reach the conclusion of the story starting in verse 54. This account is one of the only actual glimpses of heaven that the Scriptures reveal to us. As a result, I decided to preach on Acts 7 and to truly finish the story of Stephen.

However, as I began to study I realized that the Lord was directing me to not preach about Stephen but rather about what Stephen saw. Luke records a real glimpse into heaven. Upon further prayer and meditation and reflection upon God's Word I realized that I don't know that much about heaven. It is true that I could talk about it and what may or may not be happening there--but do I have a true full biblical view of the promises of heaven.

Therefore, the Lord has led me to begin a series on heaven this week. I will take the series through December 16th. It will begin with a study on Stephen's picture of heaven. I can't wait to begin this series on Sunday. I am planning to involve the whole congregation on this journey. Come along with me as we see what God has in store for us.

No Matter What the Cost Part III

Pastor Dan's sermon from 11/11/2007

Scripture Reference: Acts 7:1-53

Click here to listen.

No Matter What the Cost Part II

Pastor Dan's sermon from 11/4/2007

Scripture Reference: Acts 7:1-53

Click here to listen.

Counting Blessings

I recently heard a pastor say that we ought not just to think about the bad times but also praise God for the good times. Of course I would agree with him. All throughout the Old Testament, God's people set up altars to commemorate how good God is. They counted their blessings.

Often as Christians we don't count our blessings. We think about the bad times and the times in our lives where God either said "no" or we had to go through some kind of trial. Don't get me wrong, we ought to remember those times and thank the Lord for those times of growth. But we ought to also thank God for the many blessings he has given us.

Recently, my wife and I were struggling a bit with faithfulness. For some weird reason, we decided to put our house up for sale in this last spring. News reports began to spread that the housing market was crashing. Well, we would have taken our home off the market if we could have, but we were already legally committed to a new home closer to our church. Things were rough. We had a new baby to tend to (our third) open houses that seemed to be worthless, many on-call walk throughs--the stress level was high.

On one particular night we were both feeling down. I walked into the room and my wife was watching a woman sing her heart out on the TV. She was incredible. She was singing about praising God for all of his blessings. Then she sang something along these lines, "Sometimes I don't think I have anything to praise the Lord about, but last time I checked I woke up this morning!"

Isn't that the truth? God has given me another day of life to enjoy Him and His creation and all of the many blessings and hardships that he has given me. What more could we desire or want? I echo the words of Paul, "For me to live is to Christ and to die is gain."

We ought to count our hardships and consider them pure joy. But we ought to count our blessings and consider them pure joy as well. God is the giver of all good things. Have we thanked him lately?

Live Victoriously

Pastor Dan's sermon from 10/28/2007

Scripture Reference: 1 John 5

Click here to listen.