Inspirers :)

{Inspiration Monday}

For the next few mondays I want to write about a few of the people who have inspired/influenced/motivated/encouraged me.
When I went to California this summer my brother-in-law, Derek, was just starting a new Bible study at church. It was on Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven" and first of all it's a miracle that I'm even half way through a book (and this book isn't small) and second,God has used it to change my view of heaven and in return, my daily outlook. This may be long but I'll try to sum up the beginning chapters quickly for you.
In chapter 1, Randy talks about all of our misconceptions of heaven - words like boring, even depressing. Nearly every Christian thinks about a never ending church service in the sky. "We loose heart, and we turn once more to the present to find what life we can." In contrast, when we have an accurate (biblical) view of heaven we will desire and look forward to it.
"We do not desire to eat gravel. Why? Because God did not design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop an appitite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is like trying to develop an appitite for gravel."
He goes on to say how there are very few books about heaven, very little said in church services which raises the question: Does Scripture really have so little to say about Heaven? The bible says "NO!"
"Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn't exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. If we believe that lie, we'll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we'll set our minds on this life and not the next, and we won't be motivated to share our faith. Why should we share the "good news" that people can spend an eternity in a boring, ghostly place that even we're not looking forward to?"
Another source of our misconceptions of Heaven is naturalism: "We succumb to naturalistic assumptions that what we see is real and what we don't see isn't. God can't be real because we can't see him. And Heaven can't be real because we can't see it. But we must recognize our blindness. The blind must take by faith that there are stars in the sky. If they depend on their ability to see, they will conclude there are no stars."

In chapter 2, he talks about the importance of using our imagination. How books about Heaven are notorious for saying we can't know what Heaven is like but it will be more wonderful than
we can imagine. "However the moment we say that we can't imagine Heaven, we dump cold water on all that God has revealed to us about our eternal home."
"We cannot anticipate or desire what we cannot imagine. That's why, I believe, God has given us glimpses of Heaven in the Bible - to fire up our imagination and kindle a desire for Heaven in our hearts. And that's why Satan will always discourage our imagination - or misdirect it to ethereal notions that violate Scripture."
"If God didn't want us to imagine what Heaven will be like, he wouldn't have told us as much about it as he has." He talks about fueling our imagination with Scripture and how nearly every notion of Heaven he presents in this book is reinforced by biblical texts (he also encourages you to look it up for yourself).
I love how he makes it clear that the Bible tells us that Heaven is a physical, tangible place; that God's Kingdom will come to Earth; that God's plan isn't to demolish but to redeem/resurrect the Earth; that a physical resurrecton awaits us.
"We should accept that many things about Heaven are secret and that God has countless surprises in store for us. But as for what God has revealed to us about Heaven, these things belong to us and to our children."
"Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God" (Col. 3:1). This is direct command to set our hearts on heaven. To long for Christ is to long for Heaven.

I may have quoted the book a little much but hopefully it's inspired you to either:
a) think "she's crazy, I better find out for myself"
or
b) Diligently, actively, single mindedly pursue the things above.

Either way I'll be back next week with just a little more to say on the topic :)