Pastor Mur reminds us a little about what Heaven is like.

Every once in a while I am asked to perform a funeral service. A funeral sermon typically includes three segments: a time to reminisce, a time to release and a time for resolution.

My custom is to talk about heaven as I transition from the release segment to the resolution phase. People are tender at funerals so my intent is to challenge them to seriously think about what is ahead. The choices they face and specifically, the choice of heaven or an ending where one is separated from God forever.

Image: Joe Beck

Heaven is far different from anything we have known or imagined here on earth. Everything flourishes in heaven; everything is whole there, and everything is filled with delight. Nothing can be added to what is in heaven except you.

I live in the city where I often hear sirens. There are no sirens in heaven. No emergencies. No fears. No need to rush. Life cannot be lost in heaven. No wounds, no accidents, nothing unexpected. There is no anger, stress or anxiety there. There are no crutches, wheel chairs, canes, braces, hospitals, operations, medicine, nor patient care there. No one gets old in heaven. There is no pain. You never hurt or feel out of sorts. You are never upset. You never get tired.

Worry does not exist. You cannot be concerned in heaven. No one loses their cool. Everyone is satisfied. Contentment reigns. Peace and joy span time eternal. Everything is perfect. Perfect forever since time is no more. There is no such thing as a bad day or even a bad moment. God has wiped away every tear. Joy abounds to the point where it is commonplace, but never common for God’s presence is joy unspeakable.

Heaven is so different from anything anyone on earth has ever experienced. It is a place where the first can be last, and not mind. Jealousy does not exist there. No competition, no winners, no losers. No copyrights, rights of any kind, or ownership of anything. Pride will not exist. Gratitude will abound.

In short, heaven is totally other than what we know or can imagine. It is far beyond our comprehension and understanding. I, like you, have had some great moments, times when total delight ruled for an hour, a day, a week or even longer. But even with those moments, there was always the chance that something could happen to ruin the great joy being experienced. There was always that exposure to humanity and our shortcomings.

There are no shortcomings in heaven. No surprises. No time or chance. Instead there is an ever unfolding of wonder layered on wonder that contains and restrains each and every soul in never ending awe. We will ever stand in awe of God and the splendor of his holiness.

There are no obligations in heaven. No rules. No agreements. You do not need rules when perfection reigns. No one is there who would ruin anything or disturb the complete perfect peace of God. There is nothing to be redeemed, repaired or fixed in heaven. There is nothing to be forgiven, no resentment or hurt to be harbored in one’s heart.

No one there does anything that they should not do. There is no temptation there. No insurance to buy. There are no risks there. You will not have to be careful in heaven because care for the other person is part of being there.

Scripture tells us that we shall be so overwhelmed with what God has prepared for us who are called by his name, that we will stop all activity and all thought to call God holy, holy, holy. We will fall on our faces as we cry those words, sealed with the beauty of his holiness, proclaiming to ourselves and to all that only He is worthy, worthy of all honor, glory and praise.

And most amazing of all is that anyone can go there. We have all been invited to what scripture describes as the marriage supper of the lamb. Come and dine! Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Think about heaven. What it really is. It is not a gaudy plastic place paved with streets of gold and glitz but a place with relationships, the best sense and presence, finer than the finest gold. Nothing compares with God. Imagine being able to meet your creator, and to know that you are welcome and belong.

How about you? Will you be there? If you are not sure, Jesus, the savior, is knocking at the door of your heart right now. Will you open that door and invite him into your heart? Remember you are your doorkeeper to heaven. You have the power to open that door. Think about that. You do not want to miss what God has planned for you in heaven and on this earth as well.

Originally submitted to his local paper, this guest article by Pastor Mur first appeared at the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization of PneumaReview.com) website on September 5, 2006.

Rutkowski subtitled his book “The Journey to Identity, Passion and Purpose.” It has eight chapters that are largely filled with pleasant anecdotal materials. We learn that Todd, a Canadian, was quite a hockey player in his younger days and had to choose service to the King of Kings over a possibly very rewarding career in professional hockey.

We learn, too, of Todd’s father’s struggles, and how Todd dealt with what he wished was different. Todd reviews many things he has learned and experienced in his years with YWAM and with the Vineyard Association of Churches. I found it well written and encouraging.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns

Editor’s note: This brief review was originally published in 2006 on the Pneuma Foundation website, the parent organization of PneumaReview.com.

Reflecting on Pentecostal roots and obnoxious witnessing.

When Grant Wacker’s Heaven Below was first published, I read it and had hoped to write a review of the book. Although this really is not a review of Wacker’s book, reading it did bring some things to my mind. Wacker had unquestionably researched our roots more deeply than any other author with whom I am familiar. His pages were filled with fascinating detail and presented our forefathers in this genre of Christendom with great understanding and yet, I found myself troubled with his writing as I began to realize that I was defending the people he was writing about. I needed to protect them from what I perceived were Wacker’s critical comments.

You see, I love these spiritual ancestors of mine even though not one of them is an actual ancestor. I know that they stood for God and his enduing power in a period when the world and even many in the church looked down on these woebegone fools. They believed they had received the promise of the Father and began to move out into this arena that did not want them at all. Somewhere in Scripture it says, Not many high-born, not many wise. Likewise, the Pentecostal pioneers were not exactly the leading element of society. Seymour was a one eyed black waiter turned preacher who lived with a black bank janitor and held a small group meeting at a black railroad worker’s home. While white, Parham was a ne’er do well preacher that added to the folly of the unfinished Topeka, Kansas mansion called Stone’s Folly. Agnes Ozman was a strange girl that somehow got caught up with those weirdos. These people did not have churches, education, qualification; they were the bottom rung; the folks who did not and could not count. They had no manners or breeding, no social standing; they lived on the wrong side of the tracks or in places where they were too poor and too useless to have tracks. Promise of the Father? Get real.

Now my zeal and love for these downtrodden, unappreciated ancestors is easy to maintain. Since they are all dead, I can easily fantasize wonderful lives and great Godliness for all of them. I thought about Wacker and his book the other night when I visited another Pentecostal church during its Sunday evening service. What got me thinking was how I had to suffer through some rude woman right behind me babbling on and on in tongues. She was being far too loud for my comfort and I thought she would never shut up.

That rude woman made me remember my denomination’s annual convention last spring where we had to physically tap the shoulder of another woman who refused all attempts to stop babbling and moaning on and on in tongues while the speaker was attempting to lead the congregation of several thousand Pentecostal preachers into a deeper moment with our God. Even after being touched or tapped (at that point I was ready to rap, not tap) she persisted in making noise though she finally gave in and was silent at last. I was starting to wonder if this was like the silence in Heaven mentioned in Revelation.

Please do not take me wrong. I am not against tongues. To the contrary, I have had this gift in my life for 39 years; I can and often will interpret for others who speak in tongues, and I frequently have a prophetic word which I have shared when appropriate and for many years only with the permission of the leader of the meeting. I am against people who are rude and interrupt the flow and movement of the Spirit by drawing attention to their giftedness when no one cares to begin with and cares far less after.

Battleship USS Iowa giving a full broadside.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

We currently call behavior like this: Being in someone’s face. There seems to be something in the Spirit filled that makes us want to shock strangers or our unbelieving neighbor, friend or family member by being overly spiritual. While I am complaining about this, I have to admit that I am guilty of doing just that in my early Christian days. I was the first Christian in my generation and all other preceding generations in my family. When I went home at the age of 30 and told my mother I had been saved, she was shocked and ashamed. She begged me to tell no one that knew her or my father that I had anything to do with these unfortunate duped people that taught such nonsense and arranged and paid for me to visit a psychologist or psychiatrist which I did out of respect for her. I did not revert back to my former self and got worse when I was soon baptized in the Holy Spirit. My mother spent the rest of her life telling people that something had snapped inside me because of the great stress I was under in those days, and that I had become a religious fink and while that was better than being a drunk, I was to be ignored and not encouraged at all lest I begin to talk about
God.

When I visited my mom back then, I always put a little pocket Bible in my front shirt pocket. I knew that its presence there upset her, and part of me liked to upset her. Perhaps as a consequence of my rudeness, I never got to pray with my mother or father, we never were able to share a word from scripture nor did my father ever go to any church service or related event with me except his funeral and that was at a mortuary. My mother went once and heard a concert of Gospel music which led her to wondering on the way home how much money the singers were paid. I did not do well with my mom and dad or anyone else in the family. Forty years and more now have passed and I am still the only believer in my house. One of my five children is a Christian and she was 36 when that happened.

As I have grown older, I have learned to be far more sensitive and sensible in my witnessing. I don’t want to be in anyone’s face; no, I want to be in their heart along with my Lord, and the way to get there is not through their face but through the servant’s entrance, a route with direct access and within easy distance of the throne. How about you? Do you like to shock others with your Pentecostal gifts? Do you break out in tongues when folks like the Apostle Paul and Pastor Mur (me) and the rest of the audience want to reach over and tap you on the shoulder and say: “shhh, be quiet.” Do you draw attention to yourself or are you content to wait on the One to Whom we owe all?

I am afraid that there is some justification for the historians of our movement to look at us with just a hint of scorn and bemusement. The power from on High that has enabled us to reach so many no doubt was and is intended to help us reach far more than we have so far. We learn everyday, but those who are truly the best students only need one lesson. I want to be the best student there is in the Kingdom of God; how about you?

Note from the editor: Grant Wacker’s Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture was published in early 2003 and this guest review by Murray Hohns was originally published in early 2004 at the Pneuma Foundation website (the Pneuma Foundation is the parent organization of PneumaReview.com).

Frazee’s book started off with three forewords; one by Larry Crabb, George Gallup Jr. and Dallas Willard. Its back cover contained words of praise from Willard, Ken Blanchard, J. I. Packer, Marshall Shelly and John C. Maxwell. I was impressed as I began to get familiar with the book.

I learned that the author Randy Frazee is an emerging leader, the senior pastor at the Pantego Bible Church in Arlington, Texas, that he collaborates with George Gallup Jr. and is a regular speaker at Willow Creek Association Conferences. The back flap advised that Frazee has developed the Christian Life Profile, a practical tool to measure a person’s spiritual development in thirty specific areas.

Frazee develops our common need for community by introducing his readers to a fictitious but very real couple named Bob and Karen Johnson who attend his large church but nonetheless are lonely as they hurtle through life pursuing the American dream of house, cars, college educated children, social status and of course a meaningful relationship with their creator.

Dream fulfillment is accelerated as Bob and Karen both work on impressive career paths and fit everything one should and has to do into seven 24 days. A small group could and did not provide the relationships Bob and Karen needed to mature into the Godly design they knew they were to pursue.

The solution proposed by the author was for the Johnson’s to step back and down. Get rid of the big house with grass lawns so expansive they hindered getting to know the neighbors. Stop chasing the dream and seek community within a small community that was easier to afford and allowed time to live a life not seek one.

Our fictitious couple ended up in a connected life which affords them all they were missing as they pursued the good life. The connected life is the life we need and want; at least it is to Frazee’s present perspective.

Frazee uses the first century church described in Acts as his model. He urges that the connectedness that they enjoyed was the key to their success. The Johnson family ended up after experiencing neighborhood group community life for two years convinced that they would never go back to the individualistic isolated life style of consumerism that had governed their lives for thirty years. They finally recognized that they had come a long way in their quest to learn more about Christ and to be more like him. The mysteries of the authentic Christian community would take a life time to learn and the Johnson’s signed up for the duration. My best to Frazee but I will keep my present residence and stay where I am.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns

This book review by the late Pastor Mur was originally published in 2007 at the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization of PneumaReview.com) website.

Pastor Mur talks about finishing well and blessing the people you encounter no matter where you are in life.

Once you pass your 80th birthday, opportunities disappear. Everyday logic says that you are too old for a new career in any field. Time is short. Health, a question. No one wants you, your best days have gone by; the world belongs to the young who have prospects for growth, not death. Once you are 80, you need to get out of the way. You have had your day.

This will change somewhat in coming years since our population is aging, and our retirement planning and provisions are in jeopardy, if they exist at all. Many people my age will have to be productive since they will live longer, and the economics of life will demand that they work or go without.

I have been bi-vocational for the last 26 years. I am a civil engineer that specializes in solving problems that arise on large and small construction jobs, and I am a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Part of my ministry is a staff pastor in a large church, and one of the things I do is to pastor a group of the older people in the church. I will be 81 on my next birthday. The oldest in that group is 92.

Image: David Marcu

I am well aware of the verses in Ecclesiastes 12 and while I realize the truth of those words, I am not ready to be taken where I do not want to go, nor I am ready to give up living or hoping. My Bible tells me I have a future and a hope without any age limitation, and those are the words I choose to live by. Futures and hopes involve risk, and being willing to make the effort that will require God’s help for success.

Another of my ministry activities is to stand at one of the side front exits of our church, and bless those who exit by that door. I do this every Sunday after the 7:00 and 9:00 morning services. I make my way to the door as the preaching minister invites the congregation to stand for the closing prayer and the final song of the service.

I get to look out at the 800 to 1,000 that are in the audience for five minutes or so twice each Sunday, and while I am looking at them, I pray for individuals that catch my eye. Today, I looked at a man in a brightly colored shirt, and I prayed “Lord will you bless the fellow in that shirt this week”. I soon noticed another shirt the same color and I prayed for that person, and for another six or eight that also were similarly dressed. I did not know any of these by name.

No one knows I do this. I do not know most of those I bless. They do not know I pray for them, so I have no idea what my prayers achieve, but I am convinced that the God I turn to is eager and wanting to bless those I select each week.

I open the door as the service ends, and perhaps 40 to 100 people pass by. I say or repeat the word “blessings” to many; sometimes I say “woman of God, man of God or God loves you”. There is not time to say more since they pass by quickly. Some shake my hand, but most do not. It’s a double door, and they are moving along in two’s and three’s, so my ministry lasts five minutes and they are all gone.

I have gotten to know or recognize many that exit by my door since they pass that way every week. I often wonder what my speaking those blessings means to those that hear my words. I know that God hears me and ministers to those I bless, and those you bless.

I have learned to bless people, businesses, stores, cars, trucks, buses, ambulances, all kinds of things as I drive around town. I go by City Hall and bless the Mayor, the city council and those who work there as I pass. Would you, God, bless our Governor and the legislators? There is no end of people and things to bless. Imagine what could happen if each of you who read these words begin to bless those who pass by you.

God, would you bless each one that reads these words out of their socks this week. In Jesus name! Amen.

Pastor Mur
October 30, 2011

This encouragement originally appeared in the October 2011 edition of the Pneuma Informer, the email newsletter of the Pneuma Foundation. The Pneuma Foundation is the parent organization of PneumaReview.com.

Image: Bill Williams.

Easter is the centerpiece of the Christian Faith. It is the annual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The proclamation of “He is risen” and its response “He is risen indeed” will keynote Easter services all over the world. The only reason I write these words is that resurrection.

The Apostle Paul wrote that if Christ did not rise, our faith is in vain; useless, meaningless, totally lacking in value and merit; a waste of time. But when Paul wrote those words, he had already encountered the risen Christ. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. That momentary meeting changed Paul from one who persecuted the followers of Christ into one who led them and still today leads and shapes the church through his writings.

Paul wrote that anyone who becomes in Christ is a new creation and that everything in that person becomes new; the old passes away. We learn from Paul that while sin came into the world by the disobedience of one man, that redemption, grace and truth which readily overcomes the evil and the consequence of sin also came by one man, the one we call Jesus, savior, the lover of our soul.

Jesus loves us. Moreover Jesus loves you. I heard those words for the first time 45 years ago. I was still a young man when I heard those wonderful words: “Jesus loves Murray”. Jesus was standing at the door of my heart, knocking and hoping that I would open that door and invite him to come in.

I heard those words that day and invited Jesus into my heart. I did not understand what was to come. I had no background in this form of thought. I only knew that I wanted to be loved by God; that I needed a savior. I wanted the circumstances I faced to change.

So I swallowed my pride, my self assurance, my assumptions, traditions and simply, in my mind’s eye, opened that door and asked Jesus to come into my heart. And he did! Something happened, something wonderful, so wonderful that 45 years later I invite you to do what I did. Jesus loves you, dear one. He is standing at the door of your heart and knocking right now. Jesus is hoping that you will invite him in.

Will you? If you do, this Easter season will be filled with delight and wonder. You will become a child of the King. King Jesus, son of God and son of man. He is the mighty God whose arm is not short but able to save all who call on him.

This article was originally featured in two daily newspapers in Hawaii on Easter Sunday, 2006.

Elaborate parapets line both sides of the gable atop King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

I remember the day Jimmy Mulligan called me all excited. Jimmy was my foreman when I rehabbed the exterior walls of the West Point Military Academy’s Hotel Thayer.

Even though this call was 50 years ago, I still remember it. Jimmy shouted: “Murray, there’s a hog in the parapet”, and my imagination fed off my ignorance as I tried to picture how an animal like this could be in the parapet.

Now the parapet is the portion of a building’s exterior that extends beyond the roof. Its purpose is to keep people from falling off the roof. Most of the buildings throughout our country have this feature, but few know that the requirement to build parapets originated in the law that God gave Moses.

I had to tell Mulligan that I did not know what he was talking about. I soon learned that a hog in the brickwork meant that the number of courses or vertical layers of brick were different at each corner of the building. Since our work included rebuilding sections of the exterior wall, the job was complicated by the improper work that had been done many years before.

Now I have long forgotten how we solved that problem and its costs, but I remember what I learned that day. Someone had not done his job correctly and we had to bear an additional cost because of that. In short, we had to pay for another’s sin, the sin that caused the flaw in the wall. Sin always has its victims.

There is a difference in the way that God and mankind handle sin. We, mankind, tend to forget our sins and their consequences after enough tomorrows go by. We, at times, sort of resolve not to make the same error again. Our politicians and others say things like: “Mistakes were made and I take full responsibility for them”. However, they almost never say “How much do I owe you for this mistake?” Sin and its consequence somehow just float away to be forgotten in never-never land.

On the other hand, God forgives our sins when we confess them and repent of them. Sometimes he urges us to make restitution for the consequences that followed our failure to live as he posits best. Most times we have to live through those consequences even though we are forgiven, but God never punishes us for our sins when we go to him with a contrite heart. He forgives us and forgets what we have confessed. He, unlike what our neighbors and others often do, enables us to start over with good standing.

Sin is not following God’s ways. It prefers our wants over his. It is ignoring the instructions or manual that came with your new purchase. Sin is caring for ourselves and ignoring our neighbor. Sin is missing the mark; it’s stepping over the line or failing to reach the line. Sin is trashing God’s peace; it’s masquerading, claiming to be something we are not. It’s refusing to listen, to pay attention, to answer the phone. It is assault, saying something untrue, ignoring another, thinking we are better somehow; and it’s flight, disappearing when we are needed, going limp when we should be strong, having excuses, conniving and being manipulative. Sin is perversion, pollution and destruction.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that “all sin is folly ….” And all of us have played the fool. Thank God for the forgiveness he gives to us, because of the high, high price that Jesus paid.

PR

Have you ever wondered why some things you have asked God for never seem to come to pass?

The fall term at the local Bible College will start in a few days, and I will be teaching the second year core ministry course on Signs, Wonders and Revivals. The course covers some of the most fascinating and challenging areas of Christendom. I have experienced signs and wonders myself. I have seen several miracles happen in my own life. I have prayed for miracles to happen for others and have seen them come to pass. I witnessed the miraculous healing of a close relative in 1970 at a church meeting in Toronto, Canada. Moreover, I am one of those people who has been slain in the Spirit, fallen backwards and landed on the floor when a minister prayed for me. Indeed this has happened several times and with different ministers, one of whom was a female evangelist with the gift of Healing.

And yet with all that first hand experience and even teaching the subject, I still wonder about some of the things I see on television and in person when it comes to healing. I wonder about the healings that are claimed to have occurred, and if they are real. I wonder why them and not me? My late son-in-law went to every kind of healer including bathing in the waters at Lourdes in France, as he fought multiple myeloma for nearly five years before succumbing to that terrible disease. He became a Christian one glorious Easter morning two years before he died, but he died, and all our prayers and his efforts were seemingly to no avail. He was too young to die, there was so much to live for, it seemed so unfair, but he is gone.

How about other things aside from healing, things like unanswered prayers? I decided back in November 1995 that I would pray everyday about two things I wanted to come to pass. That now translates into almost six years of daily focused praying, but so far nothing has happened to even indicate that my prayers did anything more than bounce off the ceiling if they got that far. No answers! It seems so unreasonable, I don’t understand why it has to be this way, and sometimes I get to feeling sorry for myself over those unanswered requests. I think of the story Jesus told about the poor widow lady who went to the unjust judge with her request over and over again until she wore him down. I feel like I have surely exceeded her efforts–but unlike the story, I still have no relief.

How long, O Lord, How long?

The prophet Habakkuk asked the Lord, “How Long?” In the end, Habakkuk wrote that he had decided to praise the Lord and live for Him no matter what was wrong. God gave him deer’s feet so he could climb above it all and live up in the high places rather than in the daily fray–that if not managed well can consume us all. How about you? Are you feeling sorry about your plight? Are you asking “How Long?” Are you endeavoring in prayer? The answer is simple. We are to keep on doing what we know we should do. Do not give up. We certainly do not know the mind of the Lord or His timing. But we must hold on to Him with unshakable trust. What we think is the best maybe is not the best. Trust your God more than your idea of what is best. It is just that easy, even if we, like my son-in-law, have to die in the process. God’s plan is better than ours.

This article by Pastor Mur first appeared in the September 2001 issue of Pneuma Informer published by the Pneuma Foundation.

I did it! I finally read this book from cover to cover. I had started it many times since it was sent to me to review, but I never finished it and finishing is what counts. It is easy to start things, but finishing is the real deal.

John Stackhouse is the real deal too. He is the Songwoo Yulong Chee Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. Stackhouse presents a three point progression to demonstrate and strengthen the believer’s need to be humble and prepared in doing apologetics with our neighbor.

Stackhouse points out that apologetics is an old subject, one that has been around since God banished Adam and Eve from the garden along with the consequences of their sin and the God given hope that they would somehow survive.

The book begins with a discussion of the contemporary culture in which we live, a culture that includes pluralism, post modern thought and consumerism. With this in place the author moves into a theological presentation of conversion and then concludes with suggestions of how to communicate our faith in a natural and appealing way.

The suggestions strongly urge us to think about defending and presenting our faith to our neighbors so that we are welcome and welcoming.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns

Bob took a job in Cleveland with a paint company, and Liz found a job nearby. About six months after they were married, Liz told her husband that she was thinking about getting a piano for their apartment. Bob thought that was a great idea, he’d always wanted to learn to play the piano so they went downtown the next weekend to see what pianos cost.

They walked through the store, and soon a salesperson appeared to answer any questions. They continued to walk until they approached a grand piano when Liz asked if she could try the grand piano out. The salesman said by all means so Liz sat on the stool and opened the keyboard and ran her fingers up and down the keys.

She began to play, and her husband and the salesman were astonished. I recall Bob saying his jaw dropped and hit the floor. He had no idea that his wife could play the piano, let alone play with a master’s touch. A few months later, Liz was the lead pianist for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.

She soon enrolled at Harpur College in Binghamton NY to further study the piano, and after several years on the concert stage moved to Paris to study at Fontainebleau. Bob had unknowingly married one of the world’s most talented pianists. It turned out that Liz’s parents, who lived in an apartment above their luggage shop, had a stand up piano in their living room. Liz began to play that piano at a very early age, and developed into a world class musician during her school years. She resented what this had cost her growing up, and decided that she would not play while going to College.

I told you their story because none of us really knows the talent and artistry our mate possesses or might develop. The Bible tells us that we are to encourage each other as long as day follows day. If we do this with the right attitude and with joy, we will discover hidden talents and qualities in our husbands, wives and children.

Indeed you can be the one that opens the future and enables your spouse to become all that he or she can be. You can bless and help. You have a tongue that can build up or tear down. Let’s decide that we value our loved ones and from now on, we will become their number one fan. If we do that, God will move in his invisible Kingdom and bless you the giver and the one to whom you give will be so grateful.

Do you what talents God has given your spouse? You can be the one who brings those gifts out for all of the world to enjoy.

 H. Murray Hohns