Christian Living, Prayer
John Beeson
The Air Raid Siren

Jerusalem, Israel

3:15 am, April 13

 

I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.

 Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

The Air Raid Siren
Christian Living, Nature
John Beeson
The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.

For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.

The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive
Leadership, Wisdom, Vocation
John Beeson
Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB
Family, Leadership, Parenting, Marriage
John Beeson
The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and ...

In the past post we considered the biblical priority of leading in our homes before stepping into leadership callings outside of our home.

When I was asked to speak to our Mom’s Matter group on leading well in the home I was a bit intimidated. I felt far from equipped to speak as a man to women on the topic of leadership. And so, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked wise, godly women who were also great leaders. Starting with my wife, I began to listen to the advice my female friends offered on leadership in the home and beyond.

The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and Organization, Too!)
Christian Living, Family, Marriage, Parenting
John Beeson
Leadership In Your Home and Beyond

Who are the most influential leaders in your life? What made them such great leaders?

I fear that our cultural understanding of leadership is going further astray from true leadership. We Americans seem to have a bizarre attraction to two types of leaders: celebrities and powerful communicators with bold, brash opinions. We judge leaders by the size of their platform.

Some time ago I was asked to speak to the Moms Matter group in our church about healthy leadership in the home and beyond. One of the comments made by the leadership team was that many moms believe they “don’t need to be or can’t be a leader because they are just moms.” We can all similarly dismiss ourselves.

Leadership In Your Home and Beyond

heaven

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The internal contradiction in transgender theories: Trevin Wax explains, “It doesn’t take long to recognize the internal inconsistency between these two narratives. The first depends on maleness and femaleness being something real, for a binary must exist for it to be transgressed or transcended. The second questions reality altogether, falling for a radical skepticism that reimagines the world in terms of linguistic power plays.”

  2. Tasting heaven now: Casey McCall asks, “But what if I told you the Bible presents the resurrection as something you begin experiencing now in this life?

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Thank You, Roger Barrier

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Thank You, Roger Barrier

Roger Barrier was my childhood pastor. Roger was a faithful expositor of scripture and a gentle shepherd. He had a quick, shy smile and a calm presence. As much as anyone, Roger taught me to love and become a student of the Word. Roger taught me to pray. “Lord, make me a man of God at any and all costs.” I have prayed that prayer countless times in my life. And, just as Roger warned, it has been a costly prayer.

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Dreaming about Heaven

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Dreaming about Heaven

“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” This absurd question is attributed to William Chillingworth[i], who was mocking the penchant of some medieval theologians for expending their energy debating meaningless topics.

It has famously been said, “Don’t be so heavenly minded you’re no earthly good.”

We’ve spent a number of posts discussing heaven. Do these conversations and dreaming about heaven diminish our earthly usefulness?

Is talking about heaven the equivalent of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? What does it have to do with your life? With my life?

Dreaming about heaven is no worthless theological debate over angels on the head of a pin! Our anticipation of heaven has the power to radically reshape our lives to be more like Christ, looking toward the joy set before us.[ii]

Dreaming about the new heavens and the new earth bends our hearts toward God’s heart. The most significant positive impact dreaming and anticipating heaven has on us is shaping our hearts to value that which lasts. Heaven is why we can't seek ultimate fulfillment in this life. And heaven is why so many things that seem like a waste from our perspective are of immeasurable value.

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What is Heaven? It's Perfect Community

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What is Heaven? It's Perfect Community

The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre re-envisions hell in his play “No Exit” as a drawing room where three people are trapped together. They await an executioner who will never come and begin to realize that being trapped in one another’s presence is hell. The play concludes with these sobering lines, “You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE!”

Sartre has it wrong. Hell is the ultimate estrangement and loneliness. Heaven is perfect community.

In the West we have been taught that the purest form of spirituality is self-led.

I recently sat with a young man whose wife was having an affair on him. She was confused, unsure which partner she wanted to be with: her husband or her boyfriend. Her husband explained that she wouldn’t see a pastor or counselor because she said, “I need to discover myself and find my own way.” We have been sold a lie that the truest version of ourselves is self-discovered. We desperately need others.

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What is Heaven? Welcome to the Feast

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What is Heaven? Welcome to the Feast

Some of the most surprising and revealing passages in scripture are the glimpses we have of the resurrected Christ. In these snapshots, we have brief previews of what our bodily resurrection will look like. In two of these snapshots we see Jesus eating fish with his disciples.[i] What? The resurrected Jesus is eating? He sure is.

And with our resurrected bodies, we will eat too! One of the most powerful images in scripture of heaven is tucked away in Isaiah 25:6

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wines.

That, friends, is a party! I don’t know about you, but the idea that we get to eat for eternity is very attractive to me. Can you imagine all the new types of food we will taste? Exotic dishes we will experience?

I can smell the steak grilling and the bacon sizzling now.

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What is Heaven? A Place of Learning

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What is Heaven? A Place of Learning

When you enter heaven, how much will you know? Will you have all knowledge as it pertains to your life? Perfect knowledge as it pertains to everything?

Can we learn in heaven? According to one survey, only 18% of Americans believe that people will "grow intellectually in heaven.”[i] It makes sense. We should know everything in heaven, right? In the presence of God, won't all knowledge be ours?

I don’t believe so. I think that Scripture sides with the 18% who believe we will be learners in heaven. Paul says, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace” (Eph 2:6-7). Do you catch the presumption of active learning in heaven in that verse? God is going to show us the incomparable riches of his grace… in the coming ages!

What are the incomparable riches of his grace he will show us? The list is endless. We will certainly understand the wonder of God’s grace on the cross more perfectly, but we will also be shown more profoundly God’s grace in creation, in art, in science, in beauty!

America’s greatest theologian Jonathan Edwards rejoiced in the progressive increase of our knowledge in heaven, “The number of ideas of the saints shall increase to eternity.”[ii]

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What is Heaven? It is also a New Earth

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What is Heaven? It is also a New Earth

When I trusted Christ as a young boy, I remember thinking that the one downside of being a Christian was the boring afterlife that now awaited me. “I hope Jesus doesn’t return before I go to high school… before I get married… before I have kids,” I thought. There is a classic Gary Larson cartoon that captures my worst fears about heaven: “Wish I’d brought a magazine," the bored saint reflects.

I recently asked a group of sixth grade boys what they thought heaven would be like, and their picture of heaven mirrored what mine was at their age: a worship service that never ended, standing around the throne of God and singing song after song after song after song.

I mean, I liked church more than the average kid. I even sat through “big church” with my parents and liked the singing and preaching. But doing that forever? In the words of the old hip hop group OutKast, “Foreva eva?”[i]

Good news, friends. This won’t be the sum of heaven.

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And Heaven and Nature Sing! How Jesus' Birth Foretells His Death

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And Heaven and Nature Sing! How Jesus' Birth Foretells His Death

Merry Christmas! As we enter into a day of worship today, Scripture reminds us that God made his creation to worship himself.

Jesus’ birth was ushered in by nature. Jesus was welcomed into death by nature as well. Jesus’ birth foreshadows his death.

A star declared to those who had eyes to see that the King of the Jews had arrived.

The magi ask Herod, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matt 2:2). They then depart from Herod, “And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matt 2:9-10).

What was this star? We don’t know for sure. I find the explanation that the star was Jupiter's unique conjunctions with Saturn and Mars to be the most persuasive. These conjunctions occurred in the constellation of Pisces (the astrological sign of the Jews).

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Will We Remember Our Life in Heaven? Even the Trauma? Wyatt Graham answers this question well. He begins, "Imagine entering into heaven. Joy fills your soul. But you see some object that triggers a traumatic memory from your life. What happens to that joy now? Or say you had lived a life without trauma, yet your loved one did not share your faith. Can you rightly enjoy heaven when your spouse, child, or loved one perdures in eternal perdition?"

2. The Pornography Pandemic: Rosie Makinney reports on a much quieter spiritual pandemic sweeping the world. On just one porn site, traffic increased between 21.5%-95.3% worldwide.

3. Gaining Victory Over Temptation: H.B. Charles Jr. offers ten pieces of sound advice on how to be victorious over temptation in your life.

4. Religion and Households Around the World: Pew Research provides an interesting look at the difference of households around the world. The report begins, "Worldwide, Muslims live in the biggest households, with the average Muslim individual residing in a home of 6.4 people, followed by Hindus at 5.7. Christians fall in the middle (4.5), forming relatively large families in sub-Saharan Africa and smaller ones in Europe. Buddhists (3.9), Jews (3.7) and the religiously unaffiliated (3.7) – defined as those who do not identify with an organized religion, also known as “nones” – live in smaller households, on average."

5. How to Stack Playing Cards: I dare you to not want to try to stack cards after watching Wired’s profile of Guinness Record holder Bryan Berg.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.     Just How Big is the US Economy? This visual chart is a reminder of just how big the economies of the US and China are. Wow.

2.     5 Misconceptions About Heaven and the Afterlife: This is quite the read, with a lot loaded in here, but if you enjoyed my series on heaven last year, I think you will enjoy this more academic version. J. Richard Middleton's has several pointed moments including this one: "For many decades now I have been asking my students—whether in Bible studies, Sunday School, or in my college and seminary courses—to find even one biblical passage that clearly says that Christians will live in heaven forever (or that heaven is the eternal destiny of the believer). I have even offered a reward for success. So far no one has ever found such a passage."

3.     Why God Delights to Forgive: Scott Hubbard shares this wonderful news with us, "[D]eep down, where roots sink into soil, we wonder if God is really that happy forgiving us. Our suspicions easily replace the Bridegroom’s pleasure with pursed lips, the Shepherd’s song with a lecture, and the Father’s robe with the elder brother’s hand-me-downs. If we are going to feel and not just confess that God delights to forgive those who come to him through Jesus, we will need to grasp why he forgives."

4.     Don't Downplay Your Suffering: Regan Rose with a counter-intuitive admonition: " One of the biggest mistakes believers can make when facing a tragedy is to minimize it. I think so many of us do it because we are lacking a robust theology of suffering. So, our first reaction to a tragedy is to try and explain it away. “Hey, it could be worse!” “Everything will be okay.” “This is just a season.” Like a doctor slapping a smiley face sticker over a cancerous tumor, all some Christians know to do in the face of true calamity is to pave it over with platitudes."

5.     Crowder's Happy Day: How can you not smile when you watch this?

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