Hi all,
A burglar was breaking into a dark house in the middle of the night. He heard a voice saying, ‘Jesus is watching you’. He stops, nervous and a bit scared now, and wonders who said that. Very slowly and carefully, he takes another step. Again he hears: ‘Jesus is watching you’. Now very frightened, he turns his flashlight (torch) in the direction of the voice, and sees a parrot on a perch who says again: ‘Jesus is watching you’. Greatly relieved, he mutters out loud; “What kind of person would teach their parrot to say ‘Jesus is watching you’?” The parrot responds: “The same kind of person who named their Rottweiler, Jesus.”
The real Jesus does see everything, and there is recognition which brings reconciliation concerning the good things we do for others which are never appreciated nor understood at the time. These are things seen of God, not of man, but He remembers and records. In Matthew 25: 34-40, Jesus says those who fed, watered, opened their homes, and visited the sick and imprisoned are remembered for those actions: “‘For as much as you have done these things to the least of my brethren, you have done it to me.” You may recall from the passage the (Christians) had asked, being completely unaware He was watching: “When did we do all these things for you?” (v39) There are good things we do that we don’t even think about as rising to the level of being ‘in Christ’, but He considers them so – giving water, food, clothing, shelter, and visiting friends are here specifically mentioned as examples.
The good things in our lives are remembered, recorded, rewarded. That the Bible is full of references to the books of our lives being recorded in heaven proves that the Father God is interested in each and every person. One only writes a book if it is worth it. You are. Your life IS worth it. You have a book of your life recorded because you matter.
Secondly, it shows heaven is about reconciliation and remembrance, not the removal of memories. Books are saved so we can go back to them over and over again to remember. What is recorded in Christ is not your sins for those have been forgiven, rather what you have been through and overcome. Your struggles have been written down in Christ. As David said, tears stored and written about. (Ps 56:8)
In 1 Corinthians 3: 1-15, Paul writes to encourage them to overcome the wood, hay, and stubble of their lives, which he says are the envy, strife, and divisions in their lives. He says overcoming those things turns them from wood, hay, and stubble into gold, silver, and precious stones. That would be the type of struggle and victory written down in their books, for all to see how they struggled, rose and fell and overcame finally, through Him – so that He gets all the glory in each and every book.
It has been speculated that Jesus is the only one in heaven who will go through eternity with scars in His glorified body. Those scars in His body are focal points of remembrance, meaning that everything in our life related to Jesus and what He did for us to get those scars in His body, are remembered. We may not have eternal scars in a glorified body, but we each have a book of our life, each story gloriously told of the Father’s grace, Jesus’ sacrifice, and how our lives were transformed – for all to read about. As He protects our privacy now so will He then – the books aren’t recording sins and error and private things so no fear there. Just how He saved us and what we’ve overcome and the progress we’ve made in Him since. People are eternal, so memories in Christ are eternal.
I’ve shared, and Barb has shared in conferences and meetings, about how shortly after she was saved at age 16, the Lord showed her the start of her home in heaven. She was looking at the low sun in the west, the light coming through the leaves of a tree outside an upstairs bedroom at her house. Suddenly the wall disappeared and she was standing in heaven. She didn’t look to her right, but believes the person next to her was the Lord. They were standing before a small, block house of rock, and she asked: “Lord, what am I seeing?” He replied: “This is your house in heaven, and as you give us more to work with, we will work to complete it.” This happened before she knew any scripture about the above, and she treasures it in her heart to this day, wondering what it looks like at this point in her life.
Some of what I saw in heaven
I had known the man about a year, and learned that though in his early 60’s, had died of a heart attack. Months later I was in heaven with ‘my’ (guardian) angel by my side. I was seeing the man walking along a river bank, I assume the River of Life or a tributary of it, in heaven. He was talking with an older man who I knew by the Spirit was his father. They both looked younger while at the same time I knew they were father and son.
As they were ahead of us at least 30 feet (10m) I could not hear what they were talking about, so asked my angel: “It’s none of your business, though I can tell you it is about him leaving his house at age 17 after an argument with his dad.” Ahead of us and them in the distance to the right was a cluster of small rectangular homes arranged in a rough circle around a central area between them. I asked what that was as it seemed the friend and his father were walking in that direction. “That’s where much of their family live. On their ranch.” Because the area around the homes was open grassland it seemed to be a large ranch like in the western US and Canada, so I asked how big it was. The angel said: “You’d think of it as about 1000 acres (405 hectares).”
I could talk about how heaven is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, but that might be for another time. Suffice to say Jesus said heaven is like a seed. Using an apple seed as an example; how many apple trees are within one apple seed? And each apple may have 6 or 8 seeds within it, each one with thousands of trees and their fruit inside of that one seed. Each person reading this is larger on the inside than you are on the outside. Inside you are dreams, hopes, hobbies, skills, projects far larger than your current life reflects. You and I are larger on the inside than our lives reflect on the outside. Heaven is like that.
My point is that father and son were talking through something in their shared lives, talking it through with perfect understanding by the Holy Spirit, with no devil and no chance of misunderstanding in any way, so that peace was being attained between them. I’ve also reflected that I was shown this over a year after my friend had died, which means that 1 year into heaven and he was only then going over the how and why he left the family at age 17, and I’m sure his dad was able to tell him his reasons, as they were clearly at peace with one another.
Young girl and baby brother
I’ve shared in interviews about walking along in heaven with my angel as we were on the way to the Father’s throne, and seeing a young girl sitting with her back to a tree while her baby brother crawled all over her. Behind and around them were 14 adults from at least 4 generations, all talking and sharing with each other. I noted that a generation was missing – the parents of the children. The angel told me: “These children were killed in a car wreck, but their parents survived and remain on earth. When it is possible, relatives raise children in heaven.”
I replied: “I need to see chapter and verse on that”, to which he replied: “Have you not read Ephesians 3: 14-15 where Paul wrote: ‘For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.’? There is but one family, it doesn’t matter whether they are in heaven or earth, there is but one family.”
With any family there will be squabbles, misunderstandings, hard feelings, and good times as well. All these things are celebrated in heaven. I was also fascinated that so many generations were having the opportunity to get to know one another though a century or more had separated their lives on earth. What reconciliation!
Remember – your tears are kept, the events that caused them are written down, the small things you do for others, the prayers and actions as well as what we overcome, are all being recorded that in the ages to come we may remember and marvel at the amazing grace given to us in Christ. Amazing grace produces amazing reconciliation’s.
New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn