Jesus Loves Me

This afternoon I was sitting in the middle of lots of teenagers at our evangelistic outreach. Justin created a video especially for this Easter event, and scenes from The Passion of the Christ were appearing on the huge screen. Samuel was sitting on my lap, watching along with the rest of us.

I whispered into his ear, "Samuel, what happened on the cross?"
Samuel: "Jesus loves me."

That's exactly what happened on the cross! And so sweet to hear "from the mouths of babes".

And Can It Be?

Pondering the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ this week, this song has been on my mind.

And can it be that I should gain,
An interest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me who caused His pain;
For me who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God shouldst die for me?

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God shouldst die for me?

He left His Father's throne above,
so free, so infinite His grace!
Emptied Himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.
'Tis mercy all, immense and free.
For, O my God, it found out me.

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God shouldst die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
fast bound in sin and nature's night.
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray.
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free.
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God shouldst die for me?

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him is mine.
Alive in Him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ, my own.

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God shouldst die for me?

Do you know my KING?

I want to imagine heaven

How do you imagine heaven? Or don't you? That is precisely my problem. I (Gretchen) don't imagine heaven often enough. I am tooooo earthly-minded. I am so focused on the thousand little tasks I do throughout my day, my eyes pointed downward - toward my toddler and infant.

Justin and I started reading the book Heaven (by Randy Alcorn) together. And wow, what a breath of fresh air. To force myself to come to terms with the fact that the way I imagine has absolutely no biblical basis whatsoever! I picture Jesus on a throne and all the saints are surrounding the throne, singing, singing, singing. There are some angels flying overhead, and they're singing, too. And we all just sing. For eternity.

And I realized something. We as adults are not in the habit of exercising our imaginations. At least I'm not. Maybe you are. I remember when I was little and I used to play with my sisters. And we always had to decide what to "play" - store, house, tea party, bank... And we would insert ourselves into those scenarios, and our imaginations were so strong that we actually got excited about the corresponding real world opportunities!

If only I could abandon my shallow and boring and lifeless picture of heaven! After having read only the first couple chapters of Heaven that is exactly what is happening!

One of the girls in our youth group, Jona, recently read Alcorn's book. It had such an impact on her that she suggested to Justin and me that we do a Winter youth group retreat on the topic of heaven. We thought that was a great idea!! We are currently trying to find a venue for a retreat. So, please pray for this endeavor!


Oh yeah, and Happy Halloween!