rocket fuel

I just began reading Heaven, by Randy Alcorn. The first chapters have gone back and forth gripping me and seeming skim-worthy, but overall I think it is going to powerfully sharpen my faith and my joy in Christ- who has secured Heaven for me. And Heaven, as Alcorn labors to clearly explain, is NOT an eternal, (boring) church service....

These quotes stood out boldly for me:

"In AD 125, a Greek names Aristides, wrote to a friend about Christianity, explaining why this "new religion" was so successful: "If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby." (p. xviii)

"Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, commissioned a servant to stand in his presence each day and say, "Philip, you will die." In contrast, France's Louis XIV decreed that the word "death" not be uttered in his presence. Most of us are more like Louis than Philip, denying death and avoiding the thought of it except when it's forced upon us. We live under the fear of death." (p xix)

Alcorn's point is that, as Christians, we shouldn't fear or dread death...not at all. We've bought into an absolute lie of our Enemy if we think that this world is what we live for, or that Heaven might be even the least bit boring. We can get so caught up in our lives here- thinking only of our comforts and pleasures- when really we know that our lives here are like a breath that vanishes in an instant (James 4:14). Why would we not prepare ourselves with a holy passion and attentiveness and action for the eternity to come?

And... in pressing toward eternity, clearly we've got to care about others' eternity too. And why not care not only about the ones that we love, but about the ones that he loves (the world)?

Here's another quote that ties in on this point. It's from John Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life." This book is excellent. I've enjoyed reading it a few times and just skimmed lots of it again today. Having done so, I feel like my soul just filled up on rocket fuel. Oh that these words would be true of our lives! Much grace was administered to my soul as I read:

"I am deeply moved by the courage and carnage on Iwo Jima. As I read the pages of this histroy, everything in me cries out, "O Lord, don't let me waste my life!" Let me come to the end- whether soon or late- and be able to say to a family, a church, a city, and the unreached peoples of the earth, "For your tomorrow, I gave my body today. Not just for your tomorrow on earthy, but for the countless tomorrows of your ever-increasing gladness in God." The closer I look at the individual soldiers in this World War II history, the more I felt a passion that my life would count, and that I would be able to die well.

As rainy moning wore into afternoon and the fighting bogged down, the Marines continued to take casualties. Often it was the corpsmen [medics] themselves who died as they tried to preserve life. William Hoopes of Chattanooga was crouching beside a medic named Kelly, who put his head above a protective ridge and placed binoculars to his eyes just for an instant- to spot a sniper who was pepperin his area. In that instant the sniper shot him through the Adam's apple. Hoopes, a phamacist's mate himself, struggled frantically to save his friend. "I took my forceps and reached into his neck to grasp the artery and pink it off," Hoopes recalled. "His blood was spurting. He had no speech but his eyes were on me. He knew I was trying to save his life. I tried everything in the world. I couldn't do it. I tried. The blood was so slippery. I couldn't get the artery. I was trying so hard. And all the while he just looked at me. He looked directly into my face. The last thing he did as the blood spurts became less and less was to pat me on the arm as if to say, 'That's all right.' Then he died."*

In this heart-breaking moment I want to be Hoopes and I want to be Kelly. I want to be able to say to suffering and perishing people, "I tried everything in the world... I was trying so hard." And I want to be able to say to those around me when I die, "It's all right. To live is Christ, and to die is gain." (p. 124-125)

(* James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers,(New York: Bantam, 2000)

Recently, my mother-in-law reminded me of the movie Schindler's list- most particularly the last scene. She described (I hope I get the details right) how the all the prisoners of war who had just been released were coming up to Schindler to thank him for being so instrumental in saving their lives during the war. And he began to weep. He was grieved and heart broken that he had not done more. "I should have sold my house, my car. I could have saved more." We could look and say "well done buddy," but he knew he could have done more. He did much, but not all that he could. I don't want my life to end like that. But it will, apart from major grace of God for which I want to be crying out to come! work mightily in me.

Piper continues... "Oh, that young and old would turn off the television, take a long walk, and dream about feats of courage for a cause ten thousand times more important than American democracy- as precious as that is. If we would dream and if we would pray, would not God answer? Would he withhold from us a life of joyful love and mercy and sacrifice that magnifies Christ and makes people glad in God? I plead with you, as I pray for myself, set your face like flint to join Jesus on the Calvary road. "Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here was have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (Hebrews 13:13-14). When they see our sacrificial love- radiant with joy- will they not say, "Christ is great"? (p 128-9)

Come, Lord Jesus!