Matthew-087

It’s good to see you! I don’t know most of you, and hope that during the two weeks or so that we are here, we will have the chance to get to know you. I guess I still have to speak in English since my Canto­nese is not good enough yet to preach. And I think that most of you would not understand Mandarin, and even then less, Shanghai­nese. I see that there are two or three Shanghainese people in our midst, so we will have the chance to practice our Shanghainese again. It is good to see some of our old friends again. Some of the children have grown a lot. If I see them again, they would probably be ladies by then. I don’t know when the opportunity might come for us to meet again because I don’t know how life deals with each one of us under God’s plan.

My health has become much worse since the last time. I think it’s because of the enormous workload that we have. The church continues to grow and expand. With 18 churches around the world, that does keep some of us very busy, as you can imagine. It’s not only the number of churches, but each congregation also gets larger with time, which means that there are always more people to care for, more things to attend to, which is our joy, but physically, the workload gets ever heavier. You might notice that sometimes, I will be standing a bit lopsided, and I hope you don’t mind. When I went to have my back examined because of serious back pain, the doctor asked me to have an X-ray, and when I looked at the X-ray myself, I had a shock! The spine that used to come down in a straight line now goes around in a bend, like the Yellow River. Medically, this is called scoliosis. Somehow, the spine has twisted around. Nobody seems to know what causes this. Normally, one vertebrae comes on top of the other. For me, it seems like my bones are not even joining together at the lower back. I wonder what happened to the spinal cord in between. With the spine going sideways, and I can feel the hump, it means I get shorter, and with time, I’ll get shorter still. And I think of the words of John the Baptist, who said, “I must decrease and he must increase.” That’s wonderful! I am discovering that I am literally decreasing! So you might realize that I might have become about two inches shorter since the last time you saw me. And I might get even shorter the next time you see me. You might be looking for me up there, and discovered that I have gone down there! I used to think of “he must increase and I must decrease” spiritually, but now, it’s also true physically. Perhaps the old body begins to have problems with the pressure of work and age.

Another interesting thing that has happened is that, over the last one year or so, I started developing a kind of spasm in the face muscle. The muscle would suddenly contract, which is a bit embarrassing sometimes, because I was talking to a lady just two days ago, and when I looked at her, my muscle contracted and my eye winked! She looked at me and wondered if I am being fresh playing games with her! So I’m just telling you now that if you see my eye wink at you, don’t think I am being rude. It’s just that the muscle goes into a spasm. Nobody knows the reason. It’s just a bit humorous, and God has some humour. I think he wants me to be less serious. I asked my friend, the doctor about this and he said, “It may be due to fatigue. I get it too, in different parts of the body. You happen to have it in the face. Sometimes, it’s due to mineral deficiency, but basically, it’s due to fatigue.” Anyway, I just let you know that if you see me winking at you, don’t think that I have any rude intentions.

In walking with God, sometimes, you have to have a sense of humour as well as a lot of courage. I shall explain to you what I mean by that as I go along. I have walked with God all these years and have expe­rienced the wonder of his ways, and I know whom I believe. I don’t just believe whom I believe, I know whom I believed. Therefore, it’s a privilege to bear all these physical trials. You can say that God has counted me worthy to endure these things. I used to be very fit physically, very athletic, engaged in all kinds of sports and martial arts. But nowadays, I feel more like a cripple than anything else, and I consider it a privilege to be allowed to endure these things for the sake of God.

Let us commit the remainder of this time to God in prayer.

Gracious Father, we thank you for your presence in our midst. We thank you that you are the living God. We thank you that you want each one of us to know you and to love you because you love us. We pray that you will speak to every heart here, today. I pray for every person here, young or old, that you will draw every heart very close to yourself. For those who don’t yet know you, God, grant them the privilege to know you, the living God. We pray that you will be pleased to remove every obstacle for there are many obstacles that blind us to your reality and presence. Hear our plea as we ask for your glory’s sake. Amen.

God pulled me out of the current in a gorge

I just went for a brief holiday with my wife, Helen as the co-workers were very kind to arrange a special offer for us. So we went off to a place north of Cairns called Port Douglas. I love to swim, and even in my present condition, I still think there are very few who can keep up with me, either in distance or speed. Swimming is about the last sport left that I can do. However, it wasn’t quite possible to swim in the sea at Port Douglas because at this time of year, we are told there are stingers which are said to be very deadly. It’s some kind of box jellyfish, and you are actually not allowed to go into the water apart from the enclosed areas. But the enclosed areas are so small, at least for me, that it’s not even worth the bother to go into the water because I feel I am just like a gold fish going around in a circle. I like to go a few kilometers out. The motel we were staying at had a swimming pool that was also about the size of a goldfish bowl. So I didn’t quite know where to get any swimming done since that is about the only exercise I have left.

When we looked around the place a bit, we discovered that to the north of Douglas there is a place called Mossman, and up in the rain forest is Mossman Gorge. A gorge is a narrow place where the water rushes through and comes down like a small waterfall, and there is a pool; then again, the water goes down in a waterfall ending in another little pool down below. I was delighted that I could swim in these pools! Although each pool looked pretty small to me, at least it’s a bit bigger than the swimming pool that we have in the hotel, and not much smaller than the enclosed areas on the beach.

We walked in the rain forest for a while, and my shirt was soaking wet as I was pouring with sweat. I don’t take heat very well. I thought, “How lovely to dive into this water!” So in I went, and enjoyed the swim very much! I must have looked ridiculous with my snorkeling goggles to the few other people swimming in there. I wanted to see the rocks inside the pool because in a shallow pool, you can easily kick a rock and break your leg in the process. Then much to my delight I saw some nice fish in there which would make a delicious supper! But apparently, you are not allowed to fish in there. The water was very cold, so it almost paralyzed my leg muscles when I got in. I had to massage my leg muscles to get back some circulation before I could swim. After a while, you get used to the cold, and it’s very refreshing. I swam for less than an hour, and enjoyed it. Then we went back to the motel.

Two days later, I went there to swim again since there was nowhere else to swim. It was only about 25 kilometers from the motel. This time, it was drizzling, and as I went into the pool, there was a tremendous downpour of rain.

I told you it was a gorge and that means the water was already running pretty fast through the gorge into the pool, and again, the water rushes on from the pool and goes down as a waterfall in another section of the gorge. I had familiarized myself with the strong currents in the pool from my first swim, and I knew if I was not careful, I would get washed down and crash on the rocks below. There were two or three big signs which said, “This place is danger­ous and people have been killed here. But you are allowed to swim at your own risk.” You can see the currents of course, on the surface, and once you go in, you can feel them. I could see there was a very fast current moving around that side of the pool, so I stayed in the inner part.

The rain poured down very fast and that means the volume and speed of the water in the gorge suddenly increases within say, five minutes. If you have seen heavy rain on a street, you would have seen that the gutters are suddenly filled with water. Well, the water came so fast that the current caught me, and suddenly, I felt that even if I fought the current with all my strength, I couldn’t fight it anymore. It was rushing me towards the fall down below. It’s quite a feeling to find myself going backwards at full strength. Such was the power of the current! In that moment, I thought, “So once more my life is coming to an end!” At least it was threatening to come to an end. I tried to grab a rock, but it was useless because they were all round boulders, so there was nothing to hold onto. I tried to swim sideways to get behind the boulder, but that was also useless because the water rushes around the boulder and the current is even stronger behind the rock. No force was going to fight off this current because all of a sudden, all the rain water added to the current was now making its force so great that within a few moments, I would be carried swiftly down the rocks on my back. I took one look behind and I could see the water was going whoosh all the way down, and I was going to keep banging on the rocks all the way down! Well, I don’t know what would be left of me at the bottom of the gorge!

At that moment, I realised that I really had to look to God for mercy as something had to be done. No powerful swim stroke was going to get me out of this. The only thing I could do at that moment was to try to go sideways before I got rushed down over the edge. Suddenly, by God’s mercy, I just managed to get to the side in a fraction of time, and was out of the way of the water rushing past. Given not more than a second, I would have gone over the rocks and down the waterfall! I would have been another statistic on that warning sign: “People have been killed here.” I could then understand why people would get killed. It’s very, very dangerous. If that had happened, I would not be here to share this message with you today.

God safeguarded me when my car fell into a highway ditch

Over the past year, I have barely managed to escape death twice, by the mercy of God. Just a year ago, I nearly got killed in a car accident when I was driving from Toronto to Montreal while it was still deep winter in Canada. I don’t know whether any of you know what Canada is like in winter. Canada is awesome in winter. Everywhere is white with snow and ice. Of course, you have to experience driving on Canadian roads. Even the most experienced drivers get very nervous when it starts snowing, because the tyres have trouble grip­ping the road. We use what is called “snow radials”, a tyre especially designed to grip the snow. But don’t bank on them because they will slide on the snow as well. Now, I was driving on all season radials, not snow radials. “All season” means it is designed to cope with all four seasons, but of course, the grip on the snow and ice is not as good as snow radials. But some of us got tired of changing summer tyres to winter tyres, again to summer tyres and so forth every six months. Finally, you just say, “Forget it! I’ll just go with all season radials.” That’s the lazy way to do it, and you miss that little bit of extra grip on the snow and ice which can make all the difference.

Anyway, I had driven to Toronto to visit our churches there, and after a weekend, which was all the time I had to spend there, I was feeling a little bit tired but not too bad. I had to get back to Montreal. I allowed for one day’s rest on Monday, and headed back for Montreal on Tuesday. The drive from Toronto to Montreal is over three hundred miles, five hundred kilometers. I was feeling fine, and tried to beat the rush hour traffic and get out of the city quickly. When I was some distance out of the city, I suddenly felt very tired. I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t have left Toronto and rested another day or two.” I kept going anyway, and being a relatively experienced driver, I knew I had to take all the necessary precautions. There are many rest stations along this highway, and I stopped at every one, walked around, took some deep breaths, and drank some beverages. I thought this was the way I was going to survive this journey. At one point, I stopped for about one and a half hours at a shopping center. I actually got off the highway, walked around the shopping center in order to wake myself up fully, and then went on driving until midway to a city called Kingston, which is half way between Toronto and Montreal. I passed Kingston and thought I would be home in less then two hours.

I was driving along, and suddenly, it happened! In one second, I blanked out! Now, everybody knows that it is deadly if you fall asleep on the highway with the car moving at over 100 km/h. Even if you fall asleep for just one second, the car veers off the road. The entire two-way highway is constructed in such a way that it is banked, that is, it goes down on both sides. There is a highway on one side going east and another highway on the other side going west, and there is a kind of “ditch” in between these two sets of lanes, which is quite deep in some sections. I was on the east-bound highway, when I suddenly fell asleep. My car, moving at this enormous speed, went right off the road, and suddenly, I felt a tremendous bang which woke me!

I looked up, and it was quite a unique experience! I saw snow and ice flying past me because I was going at tremendous speed, and snow and ice banks were on both sides of me. I saw the highway I was on before on one side, and the highway going in the opposite direction was on the other side. I was between two highways. I could only assume which highway I should go back on, but if I went up on the wrong one, I would end up with a head-on crash with on-coming cars. I had to make split-second decisions because my car was going very fast in the snow.

I realized too, that I couldn’t step on the brakes when I am on snow and ice because the car does not respond to the brakes. I also realized that if I stopped, I would lose the momentum to get up the embankment. But there was a risk that my car could overturn while going up because the bank was quite steep. It was already a miracle that it did not turn over when it veered down from the road because cars do turn over in these ditches. In fact, as I drove on, I saw a truck that had turned over in the ditch. I had to decide what I was going to do in that split second. I had to figure out how to swing the car back up on the highway again. Amazingly, I got it back on the road again. The more I think about it, the more I cannot understand how the car got up because it’s very hard to get up from snow and ice. The tyres could not grip snow and ice very well at all, so even with the momentum, what could have happened is that the car would simply have slid sideways without getting on.

The car got up onto the road, but the force of the momentum shot it across the road, and it went down the ditch again on the other side! I thought, “Oh no! Here I am down on the other side! How am I going to be able to stay on the road?” You cannot make the car come up sideways. You have to nose the car fairly straight up in order to have the force to come up the embankment. The highway only has two lanes, and it’s very easy to go down the other side again. I had to look to God to give me grace to get my car up one more time, and I hoped I was going in the right direction. I swung it up, and this time, the car got back on the highway, and I managed to stabilize it! I was now concerned that the car might have become a total wreck. I didn’t know what it might have banged into underneath, although remark­ably, I did not hit a stone pillar, a tree, or anything along the way, which I could easily have done. Since cars are not allowed to stop on a highway, and since my car could still run, I kept going.

Amazingly, there were no cars at that time, except for one further back. The driver had seen me, and I think he must have been shocked at my going down, up, and down. He must have thought, “What is going on here?!” This person was very alert, whoever he was. I could see in my mirror that he slowed down his car and switched on all the emergency flashers so that cars that are travelling very fast along the highway would not easily crash into the back of him. As I kept mov­ing, I noticed that this poor driver went to the side of the road and stopped there with the flashers still on. He or she must have been so shocked and tensed up that he or she could not drive anymore.

I just kept going onto the next rest station. Then I got out of the car thinking, “I can see the whole car body is destroyed.” I walked around the car looking for signs of damage, and to my amazement, there wasn’t a mark on the car anywhere! I thought, “How can this be?!” The car suffered no damage at all. Well, God safeguarded me from what could have been another fatal accident, and allowed me to return home in one piece.

My can of apple juice never even spilled!

In this regard, I would particularly like to tell of my can of drink because to me, it’s a most astonishing incident. When I left Toronto, the co-workers had given me some food to take along in their thoughtfulness and kindness. They had given me a can of apple juice which I put in the corner of the seat just by the arm rest, so that I could just pick it up and drink. That was partly to keep me awake. After I had recovered a bit from the shock of this whole incident, I suddenly thought, “Where is the can of apple juice? The car floor must be flooded with apple juice now! I must be stepping in apple juice down below!” I couldn’t see the can because it was night-time, and I couldn’t see the condition of the floor. I looked around for the can and wondered where it had gone to. A back cushion was on the passenger seat, and finally, somehow I lifted it and saw that the can had travelled around the back cushion to the space between the seat and the door and was resting on the armrest! No apple juice had even spilled out! It was just standing there.

I thought to myself, “How is this possible? When the car went down the slope the first time, the apple juice would surely have fallen right onto the floor. And the car went down the slope a second time. How was it possible that the can remained on the seat and came round to the door? I think that we sometimes see the kindness and the mercies of God particularly in these seemingly small incidents. It’s very remarkable! So I stretched over to take hold of the can of apple juice, thanked God for his amazing mercies, and sipped the apple juice again. I don’t think I will ever be able to figure out how it happened. Sometimes, it’s not the big things that are most striking, it’s how this little thing happened. I couldn’t figure it out. Such is the kindness of God!

Such is walking with God! Sometimes in our labours, we become very tired. Where would we be if it were not for God’s protection? It’s also not merely the question of getting myself killed. Even worse is that I might end up killing others. My car had shot over twice while I was trying to get it to come up on of the road. If another car, or a group of cars had been coming at that time, I would have smashed into a whole group of cars. What kind of fatalities that would have resulted in is terrifying to imagine! But God in his kindness safeguarded everything. Yes, through these years of walking with God, He knows how frail we are, and how he has watched over us! So the recent experience of being nearly swept over the gorge, is added to this long list of experiences which I have had of walking with God through these years.

God guides me in what books I read

When I want to share about the goodness of God and all my experiences of him, there’s so much to talk about. It’s no wonder that Paul could talk all night! I’m sure he wasn’t talking theory all night. I leave the theory for the training sessions. Those dear ones in training have to struggle with difficult subjects. But in preaching, I just like to recount the things that God has done.

In talking about all the things that God has done, I also find God guides me in very little matters, although they may not be so little. For example, how God guides me in what books I read is also remarkable! I look to God for instructions. I go to very many places in the world, and amazingly, I find books in different places that I have never seen before. You would think that by the time you have gone to so many bookshops, you would know every book in print. You would be surprised as you would find books in one little bookshop in some unknown place that you have never found in any other place in the world!

This time up in Port Douglas, we went to a place called Smithfield. When we arrived, the shopping center was about to close. We didn’t realize that it closes at 7.30 instead of 9 p.m. on a Thursday, so we had just about ten minutes before closing time. As soon as I got into the shopping center, I saw a bookstore to my delight! In there was a tray of books at half price. Immediately, I began scanning the half-priced books, and a book caught my attention. I thought, “Did I read the title right?” It read, An Invitation To Being Physically Immortal. Physically immortal? Does it mean if I had gone over the edge of the pool in the gorge, and had been bashed down the rocks, it wouldn’t have done me any harm? If I had been physically immortal I would have just stood up, dusted myself a bit and walked away, rather like Bugs Bunny and Sylvester the Cat in the cartoons. They get flattened by some truck and then just stand up, straighten their backs, and walk away. That is really physical immortality! I looked at this title again, An Invitation To Being Physically Immortal. What does he mean? Since the shop was closing in ten minutes, I didn’t have time to stand there and read the book. I paid the eight dollars and bought the book at half price.

“The cells in your body are immortal, so we are immortal”

I have been reading it for the last few days and it’s really amazing that there are people who would believe such things! You must have either faith or sheer stupidity, I don’t know which it is, because according to these three writers, your cells have a built-in immor­tality. We are now at Easter so I think it’s appropriate to talk about this because they are in fact, talking about eternal life. Eternal life is the immortality that is latent in every human being. You just have to realize that you are immortal to release that immortality, and you will live forever. Remember, the book is entitled, An Invitation To Being Physically Immortal, and is talking about the physical immortality in our body. According to these three authors, every one of us is physically immortal.

I looked at the pictures of these three people, and they looked like they were in their late forties early fifties, a little early to talk about immortality yet. If they were given another fifty or a hundred years, they might have some credibility to talk about immortality. But to say, “I am immortal,” at forty, fifty, there are still some years ahead to see how long they will live. So I find that this was astonishing. I kept thinking while reading through this book: “They’re not kidding, are they? They’re not kidding!” This book is saying that the cells in your body are immortal. I thought that if you whacked your thumb with a hammer by mistake, you would kill quite a few cells. Apparently, this does not deter the cells at all. This “cellular immortality” is going on. Do they seriously believe this? Apparently, they do!

“Physical immortality” by no-barrier inter-personal relationships

There is an interesting concept as I read on: the authors connect this “cellular immortality” to a kind of mutual relationship. They say that you don’t attain this “cellular immortality” individually by going into a cave or into a monastery, and just spend the rest of your life in contemplation. Some Hindu holy men go into the caves up in the Himalayas, and spend their whole day sitting in the lotus position to meditate, and it is alleged that some of them are a few hundred years old! Of course, I don’t know how anyone can document that. I won’t quarrel with that because it doesn’t bother me too much one way or the other.

This “physical immortality” that you have in your body can be attained through inter-personal relationship. They are talking about physical immortality, not about spiritual immortality, where humans die, and are resurrected by God. Inter-personal relationship means that you open yourselves to each other totally. When there is total openness to each other, there is an inter-flow of energy that results in this physical immortality.

Of course, I was thinking of some old couples, eighty, ninety years old who have been married for as long as anyone can remember, and live in wonderful harmony with one another, but that did not prevent them from getting old and dying at the end. So I was thinking, where does this theory come into effect in this case?

Their notion is that if there is a whole group of people, like us here, and we freely release ourselves to one another, we can attain physical immortality. They say that the problem with people is that we are closed to one another. You look at me and think, “This guy looks a bit funny. He’s lopsided. His tie even comes to one side because he’s lopsided. Maybe his face is going to twitch and his eye is going to twinkle at me. Funny guy! Am I supposed to open myself to him, and he opens himself to me?” What does it mean? This means there are no barriers. We can communicate completely with one another, and in this way, we transmit energy from one to the other, and this energy is what results in immortality. Physically, you never die How do you appreciate this? Does this sound good to you? It sounds interesting to me!

Build heaven on earth in “communities of the immortal”

As you read on in the book, it says since you are physically immortal, you don’t have to worry about heaven and hell anymore because you never die! If you never die, you never go to heaven and never go to hell. It says we are going to build heaven on earth! Immortality is a reality you can experience on earth. Then they go on to say they are in the process of forming “communities of the immortal.” And it is easy to participate. You just have to be really willing to open yourself to other people. No barriers between people, no chess playing between us. We are totally genuine and honest with one another, entirely open with one another. It seems to me that the church has been teaching that for a couple of thousand years already. What’s new? Maybe we haven’t succeeded in being totally open to one another. Perhaps they are trying to do the same thing, to be open to one another.

So the train of thought in this book is like this: every person is basically immortal. You have been programmed into believing that you must die. If you stop believing that you must die, maybe you won’t die. You just have to believe that you are immortal, that this business about dying is all fiction. You just have to believe that you have this immortality in yourself.

I’m sorry I find this a little funny. I thought this is too good to be true! The only slight problem about this wonderful story is, how do you know that your body is physically immortal? Throughout the book, no attempt is made to prove that there is this immortality in us. You are simply asked to accept it on the basis that the reason why people die is because they believe they will die. And the reason why you don’t die is because you believe you won’t die.

It made me think of my youth. When I was young and physically strong, and the muscles were bulging in all directions, and I was “fit as a fiddle” as they say, I thought I was immortal. I thought I would never die -- “Look at me. It’s not possible to die. I feel on top of the world!” Have you felt like this? Every athlete has felt it. You go out in the morning to do your training, and you feel superb! You breathe the morning air and feel you’re on top of the world. Of course, if you’re on top of your sport as well, you feel just marvellous! “I would never die!”

The problem is, as time went on, and the back got to ache with age, and you’ve got a pain here and a pain there, and suddenly, you have to wear glasses of all things! I had 20/20, perfect vision, and then one day, I had to wear these miserable things on my face. I thought to myself: “What’s going on? This body seems to be in decline!” Is the body like an engine that wears out? Or doesn’t it wear out, that it can forever regenerate itself? Of course, according to some, it might be fine to keep on regenerating the body. But does it work in practice? Is the reason for my physical decline because I believe that I must die, therefore I decline? Which comes first – the belief in death or death? I’ll leave this interesting idea with you until next Sunday when we can think about it still further. In the meantime, you have a whole week to realize that you are immortal. I hope that you are still with us next Sunday, and that I am still with you, otherwise this whole theory falls apart before next Sunday!

Aspire to eternal life: Love one another to build God’s heaven on earth

1. Eternal life is the life of immortality

I would like to summarize three things. First, the notion of immor­tality is eternal life, the life of immortality.

2. Eternal life is connected to our relationship with one another

Secondly, very importantly, this immortality is connected to our inter-relationship on the basis Scripture. I fully agree with that. It is the bad relationship with one another that poisons our whole system. Have you felt really angry with another person? Have you felt bitter? Jealous? Hateful? Do you know what it was doing to your whole system? You feel terrible! It eats you up inside. It literally kills you! It’s terrible to have a bad relationship. It turns life on earth into hell.

In Luke 10:25-28, an important passage which has its parallels in the other Gospels, a lawyer asked the Lord Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?”

And the Lord Jesus said, “You should know what it is. It’s written in the Law,” This is because he is a lawyer, a specialist in the Old Testament Law.

The man then said, “Yes, the one law is basically fulfilled in two aspects: You shall love your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”

The Lord Jesus said, “You have answered rightly. Do this and you shall live.”

The question the lawyer asked in Luke 10:25 was, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” Notice the Lord Jesus’ reply. He did not say, “Believe the right doctrines and you will have eternal life,” but he said, “Do this.” What do we do? Love God with all your being and love your neighbour as yourself, and you will have eternal life. Notice the Lord Jesus related the question of eternal life to the relationship with one another.

Love God with one’s all is meaningless unless you love the neighbor

Paul condensed this point even further in case we miss the point, that the relationship between loving God and loving the neighbor are not two different things but two sides of the one coin. That is, to love God with all one’s heart is meaningless unless it is put into practice in loving the neighbor. That is why in Romans 13:9 when speaking about the central issue of the Law, Paul does not even mention the first point, about loving God with one’s whole being, but merely say, “Love you neighbor, for that is the fulfilling of the Law.” And in case we miss that point, he repeats it in Galatians 5:14 saying, “Loving the neighbor is the fulfilling of the whole Law.” Again, he doesn’t even mention the first point about loving God with our whole being; because we can easily say, “Yes, I love God, but I hate you.” No, no, no! You cannot say that; not according to the Bible you can’t. If you love God, you love the person. If you hate the person, you don’t love God. That is what John says in 1 John 4:20, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar”

That is why I said I like the connection. Immortality is connected to our relating to one another. What are we saying when we speak of love? We are saying that we are totally open to one another. “I accept you no matter what you look like. You might be losing all your hair on top of your head, but I won’t be prejudiced against you. Or you have too much hair on your head, but I won’t be jealous of you. You may be very fat, or you may be very thin, unconditional love accepts the other person no matter which way you look at that person. The relationship with one another is rooted in immortality.

3. Do God’s will to establish his reign—establish heaven—on earth

Thirdly, it is true we can establish heaven on earth. In fact, that is what we are called to do, surprisingly. Why do I say this? We are called to build the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven on earth, that is, the reign of God on earth. In Luke 17:21, the Lord Jesus says, “Don’t be looking around for it here, there, and everywhere. The kingdom of God is among you.” That is, we are to build it. We are to pray the prayer: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come,” which means “Your will be done on earth.” Isn’t it our business to do his will on earth? And by doing his will on earth, we establish his kingdom, the kingdom of heaven on earth. If we could do this, the church will be a wonderful place. It will be a little piece of heaven on earth. It’s your job and mine—if we are truly Christians—to establish a little bit of heaven on earth. We can make another person joyful, encourage a person, and bring heaven to that person even just for a few minutes. How difficult it is for us to do an act of kindness, or to give a smile? How much more permanent is that heaven if we could reconcile our differences, our squabbles, our unhappiness within and without? We can bring heaven into our hearts. We can live it on earth.

It is God’s presence that makes “heaven” real

I once experienced something of a foretaste of heaven, and I never forget that experience. I was in prayer that morning, and somehow, suddenly, heaven came down! I cannot describe that unusual experience. It was so unique that I was aware of everything around me, and yet I was aware of heaven being around me as well. It was a most remarkable experience! It is God’s presence that makes heaven real. This experience lasted for about two and a half to three hours! Finally, after about two hours, I had to go to an appointment at noon time. Yet I sensed heaven just around me all the way as I was walking along the road, as though heaven was following me to where I was going. This experience did not stop until I actually entered the house where that meeting was taking place. Then, there was a remarkable power present, which resulted in one of the people there coming to God that very day, without really any effort on my part at all. So, our task is indeed to bring this experience of heaven on earth.

Let me summarize. In Luke 10:25-28, there is the question about eternal life: “What must I do to be immortal?” The Lord Jesus says, “You see it in the Law. The Law already told you.” What is it? It is to love God, to love your neighbor. Loving God is to be practiced in loving the neighbor. We open ourselves. We give ourselves totally to one another. And by that comes the third step: we establish something of heaven on earth. That is a wonderful program that is given to us to fulfill. That is what true Christianity is about.

Luke 10:25-28 is only possible by the power of the living God. You can’t cut God out

This book was trying to produce an imitation of the same thing that is seen in Luke 10:25-28, because they wanted to cut God out. The book tells us that since we are immortal, we don’t need God. And even more astonishing, it goes on to say, “God is immortal, I am immortal, therefore I am God!” I had to blink my eyes to see that I was reading correctly. I am quoting the exact words written by that writer: “I am God” Astonishing isn’t it? Even though I am immortal, that doesn’t make me God. Even if I live forever, I have that eternal life as a gift. But they want to take God out of the picture and form “a community of the immortal.” Well, it’s good that they want to be open to one another, but I don’t see that it’s going to work. They have been around too short to prove that this is going to be workable. But we have the same truth in Scripture made possible by the power of the living God.

Let us close in prayer.

Gracious Lord, we thank you, that you have given us immortality in Christ. You have also given us a command through Christ to love one another, that if only we would practice it, we would experience heaven on earth. Forgive us that we so often turn every relationship, whether in the church or at home, into a living hell. Help us God, to be delivered from this power that makes life so miserable, and bring us into this power of the new life, which is the life of immortality. Help us to bring heaven on earth through the way we live, through the way we relate to one another, and through the way we open our hearts to you, so that your heaven will enter our lives. Let your blessing rest on each dear one here today. Accomplish your purpose in every life. Amen.