Heart of Heaven

A letter from a dear friend.

What is your thoughts on Jesus statement that
"The kingdom of heaven is within you" ?

I believe that part of what he is saying is that everything in Heaven can be accessed. The power, the boldness, and the faith. When Jesus left and gave us His Holy Spirit he said that if he didn't leave we wouldn't have the power. The kingdom of heaven was near when Jesus was here. He said that. Then when he left, he sat down at the right hand of the Father to be our great high priest. In His great mercy He sent the Holy Spirit to us, so that His power (the Light) would be in us. The Holy Spirit fills us, leads us, shares Christ's love with us, and guides us. He is one with the Father and Jesus, and because the Spirit lives in us, we are then apart of that oneness. Therefore, even though we have not seen heaven with our eyes, we are a part of it. We are able to be filled by the Spirit and bring that same love and everything good that is in heaven to a world where it is not.

That is why the scripture describes us to be like Jars of clay. Emptying of our sinful selves and being made new into the image of Christ. We are filled with the Holy Spirit. We are Vessels of His mercy and Grace. That is why he doesn't like if when we treat each other poorly or judge one another. We are all made of the same clay and in His image. He is the only one who truly can see the inside of a person and He is the only on who can truly love them enough to judge their hearts.

Sometimes we have to say hard words to one another, because we don't want them to miss out on a blessing in their lives. Those words have to be born out of that heaven love. Bad habits or repeated bad choices are hard for any friend to watch when we know where it is leading. That was what he describes the church to be for. A place of building up and setting right.  Loving tangibly though hard life. Sadly we sin a lot and it gets in the way of Love. That is not His plan. By His Grace though he makes a lot of good out of the messes we get ourselves into and for that I have been thankful many times.

Moral of this story, I know the kingdom of heaven is real. I have it here in my heart!

To Be Or Not To Be

A letter from a dear friend.

I've been reading the bible and I thought I would ask your interpritation of this passage: Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

This verse had once bothered me a bit, but I do have a sense of what it is saying. The first thing to realize in this scripture is that it is a bad translation. The word hate is not a good translation. A better way to translate would be love less. Which I believe is closer to the Greek meaning of the word.


The title of verses 25-33 is "The Cost of Discipleship." I think taking the whole passage gives it a better meaning as well. What Christ is saying here is that He has to be all. We should look at our lives and what we value most, because he wants us to give it all up for the sake of the call that He has for our lives. Even to the point of dying for Him. Do not forget that He would never ask us to do anything that He has not endured. He sympathizes with all our weaknesses. He is calling for an all or nothing approach to following him, and in doing so at one time or another every relationship we have will be effected by our whole-heart response to His call.

I can see in my own life, after walking through hardships that have left me on the outside of relationships, because of my faith, what he means. He wants us to keep our mind's eye focused on Him. Whoever we love the most...that is who we care about their opinions the most. He wants our focus, so that when others are leading us down a road that is insecure or they are wanting us to get into situations that are not the best, we will look to Christ who understands our deep unmet needs and find the love and strength, that only he can truly offer. We will then follow him into the relationships we wouldn't dare or to the hungry and sick that we wound't have the stomach for. We can then have victory in this world of much defeat. I have done both, and I would not have begged you to read the word and turn to our most Gracious Heavenly Father, if I have not felt his healing, overflowing love spilling on me time and time again in my darkest times. I can't think of a better way to live than completely sold out for my relationship with Him.