Heaven Is Better Than We Can Think

Transcription

1 PART 8 February 27, 2011 Pastor Alan Wright We thank You that even in our best moments, even in the sweetest times of worship or adoration, even in the greatest experiences of love on this earth, we are seeing only a dim picture, receiving merely a sweet taste, of what we are guaranteed in Jesus Christ to come. Lord, we thank You for the promises of the precious name of Jesus. Our hearts are open today, ready for You to teach us from your Word, ready for You to do your work in our lives, to enable us to be doers of your Word. Some come today with burdens. We thank You that You are a God Who cares, that You promise us You will keep us in perfect peace when our minds are steadfast on You. 1 We trust You, that You are the eternal God 2 and You are the rock of our salvation. 3 We give this time to You today and ask that You would open up the eyes of our hearts and lead us. Lead us into the truth. Lead us into the way everlasting. Lead us by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Lead us into deeper assurance of our adoption as sons and daughters. Lead us into a greater vision of the glorification of this earth, of these bodies, of all things made new. Lead us, God, we pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen W e are in the midst of a series called, which is rooted in Paul s ascription of praise to God in Ephesians 3:20: Now to Him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond what we could ask or think And we have come to understand that God is continually working on our behalf and for His glory in ways that are beyond what we could currently understand. In this sense we are blessed beyond belief, beyond what we could comprehend with our finite human minds. And yet, by the revelation of His Word through the Holy Spirit to us, we are continually given glimpses of that blessedness. AND SO IT IS that today we will talk about Heaven, one of the greatest of our blessings beyond belief! Alan D. Wright All rights reserved

2 We are blessed beyond belief, beyond what we could comprehend with our finite human minds. And yet, by the revelation of His Word through the Holy Spirit to us, we are continually given glimpses of that blessedness. ROMANS CHAPTER EIGHT 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Paul was teaching that even the very worst suffering you might ever experience or ever see in the world, even the very worst you could envision, could not be measured or weighed against the glory of what is prepared for us in the plan of God for the redemption of all things. It is the fullness of God s plan; it is the full glory of Jesus Christ Himself. Therefore there is no value in any comparison to what is happening in or around us in the here and now. The future glory is beyond any means of measurement The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. We are already in Christ; it has been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit that we are sons of God. But Paul was speaking of a greater revelation which is to come one day when we, the children of God, are reigning with Christ! Then, the glory of God will be so manifest within us, that every demon of hell will have to say, THAT is the glory of God For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Where there is hope, we persevere. A n Indiana cemetery has a tombstone, more than one hundred years old, with the following epitaph: Pause, stranger, when you pass me by: As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. So prepare for death and follow me. An unknown passerby scratched these additional words on the tombstone at some later time: To follow you I m not content, until I know which way you went. Are you ready for some good news? LET S TALK ABOUT HEAVEN! Though the whole world may be groaning in travail, the travail of this life and the sufferings of this world are not evidence of our demise. Instead, the travail of the world, like a woman in childbirth, is evidence that there is something new and better that is to come. Those who die in Jesus Christ immediately depart to be in Paradise with Christ. That is GOOD NEWS! But that is not the end of the good news, for much, much more is coming. The trumpet will sound one day, the dead will all be raised, and those in Jesus Christ will be given a glorified body. That is GOOD NEWS! That body will be able to behold and emanate the full glory of God. That is GOOD NEWS! God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth. That is GOOD NEWS! And those who are in Jesus Christ will forever reign on the new Earth with Him. That is GOOD NEWS! That is all, very, very good news! It is exciting to think about Heaven Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 2 February 27, 2011

3 IMAGINE THERE IS NO HEAVEN I once heard a sermon entitled, Imagine There Is No Heaven, a takeoff on a line from John Lennon s song, Imagine. Most Americans say they believe in Heaven, but I am not sure we act like we do. Could you imagine a culture where people didn t believe in Heaven? Could you imagine what a culture like that would be like? People would idolize youth and physical fitness. Everyone would feel pressured to look like the painted images of young men and women on the covers of magazines. Their attempts would be characterized by cosmetic surgery and a mass industry of products designed to hide wrinkles, color hair and tighten flabby skin. People would also try to act young by buying speedy cars, chasing racy women and gulping drugs in vain attempts to restore the performance of their once youthful bodies. And people would idolize sports stars for their athletic prowess and physical fitness. People would watch sports all the time and pay the sports figures unbelievable amounts of money. People would denigrate old age. They would disregard older people, not revere their wisdom, and not afford them the respect and stature one deserves for having lived a long time. People would not want to face the realities of death in a culture that did not believe in Heaven. They would concoct all kinds of euphemisms for it, like he passed away; he has gone on; he is resting in peace; he is no longer with us. In a culture that didn t believe in Heaven, people would be obsessed with accumulating more and more and then build bigger barns to store it all. They would act as if their lives consisted in the abundance of their possessions, and as if their treasures would always be with them. 6 A MISER WHO HAD LIVED A LONG LIFE brought together his doctor, his lawyer, and his minister and said, I m going to take it all with me. You can t do that, they said. Yes I can. I ve hired you and this is what I want you to do. I m going to give each of you a briefcase containing a million dollars in cash, and I want you to throw each briefcase into my grave before they put in the dirt. The travail of the world, like a woman in childbirth, is evidence that there is something new and better that is to come. So the day came, and the doctor, lawyer and minister were the last ones remaining at the graveside, and each man threw in a briefcase before the dirt was shoveled in. When the men arrived at the parking lot, the doctor said, I have to confess something. I kept half of the money, and I only left a half million dollars in the briefcase. I just couldn t throw away all that money. The lawyer then said, I also have a confession. I kept three quarters of a million and left two hundred and fifty thousand in. The minister was silent, and they said, What? Are you telling us you put in the whole amount? The minister said, Absolutely. I deposited all that cash and then put a check in the briefcase for the full amount! In a culture where there was no belief in Heaven, hopelessness would reign. We say we believe in Heaven, but we don t seem to act like it. WHY PREACH ON HEAVEN? Some have asked me, Why don t you preach on Heaven sometime? I tried to determine when I last preached about Heaven, and discovered it has been a long time. It caused me to take an honest inventory and wonder why I haven t meditated on or spoken more about heaven, and why others might not tend to think about it much either. Do we tend to think we are too young to think about Heaven? When we are younger, we don t think about Heaven as much. But when we do, Do we tend to think about Heaven as an escape? I sometimes thought that if we were focusing on Heaven all the time, we would be no earthly good, Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 3 February 27, 2011

4 The Scriptures show us that Heaven will be filled with art, music and craftsmanship; never-ending discoveries and adventure; purposeful work and learning; feasting, dancing and grand parties; rejoining of old friends and family; exquisite intimate relationships; ruling and leading; resting; and discovering your ultimate destiny. that it is a form of escape to think about Heaven and all this I ll fly away. I didn t want to remove the focus from the fact that the Kingdom of God is at hand now, but neither did I want the mentality of the teaching which essentially said, We can t do anything now. We re helpless now. We re just falling apart now. We re getting torn apart now. Satan is going to eat us alive now, BUT, one day we re going to fly away. I definitely wanted to get away from the idea that we are essentially hiding from the world while waiting for the Rapture. Why even try to understand Heaven? I also assumed that if Heaven is above and beyond what we can imagine; 7 if the secret things belong to the Lord; 8 if no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him ; 9 if there is so much that we cannot understand, we could say, Why even try to study the Scriptures? Why try to understand Heaven? Yet after searching the Scriptures and meditating on Heaven this week, I recognized there were clearly some false assumptions in my thinking. I saw that the purpose of focusing on Heaven is not for disengaging from the world; it is for gaining the courage to engage with the world. I saw how Paul had been nearly Raptured in his vision of Heaven, 10 and I knew he wasn t afraid of anything. And I saw that the Apostles also were able to live so boldly because of their confidence of Heaven. So I shifted my thinking. A GREATER VISION The Scriptures provide a wealth of information about Heaven, and whether it is literal or figurative, its purpose is to give us an increased vision of Heaven so that we can know with certainty the goodness of God, and the promise of the glory of God, thereby enabling us to have hope. Paul said that we have patience when we re hopeful. 11 He also taught us that God has given us His Holy Spirit to assure us that we are children of God; that He is a deposit in us to guarantee our inheritance, and to provide for us now the firstfruits, or the first of the blessings, of resurrection power. And so it is not true to say that we cannot envision Heaven. We can. Yet it is far better, far greater, far beyond what we could ever envision. Impaired Vision I realized that my vision of Heaven was too small, too boring, too ethereal, too intangible. Heaven is not just a state of mind If our vision of Heaven is that it is just a state of mind, how could we get excited about that? Heaven is not about harps and clouds Mark Twain's famous, rambunctious character, Huck Finn, wasn't attracted to Miss Watson's instructions about Heaven. Huck said: She went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was go around all day long with a harp and sing, for ever and ever. So I didn t think much of it. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said, Not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. 12 I can promise you, no middle school boy no real person at all would want to spent an eternity floating around on a cloud and playing a harp. Oh, What A Place! What if I told you that the Scriptures about Heaven show us that it is not so ethereal and intangible; that it is not a place where you will float around aimlessly; that it will be filled with art, music and craftsmanship; never-ending discoveries and adventure; purposeful work and learning; feasting, dancing and grand parties; rejoining of old friends and family; development of exquisite intimate Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 4 February 27, 2011

5 relationships; ruling and leading; resting; and discovering your ultimate destiny? Could you get excited about that?! Glorified Bodies What if I told you the Bible doesn t really teach the immortality of the soul or some ethereal state of mind, but rather the resurrection of the dead? That just as surely as God first scooped up some dust, formed a man, breathed life into him and he became a living being, God will do that once again; that one day in the mystery of God He will come back in the person of Jesus and He will scoop up that same dust again the SAME DUST and He will blow life into us as a resurrected being? Could you get excited about the body you now have being resurrected and completely rebuilt into something that is like this body, but altogether better, and with a spiritual capacity you have never dreamt of? What if I told you that it will be fully you in the same way that Jesus was fully Jesus after His resurrection, and that you would fully recognize and fully embrace those whom you now miss in Christ? Could you get excited about that?! A New Heaven and Earth What if I told you that every part of this Earth will be redeemed from death and decay; that there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth which will be united in a way that is currently beyond our understanding? Could you get excited about that?! Forever With Jesus And what if I told you that we will be joined with our Lord Jesus Christ in a unity beyond our comprehension; that we will have a glorified, everliving life with Jesus that is beyond our imagination, an existence we have only shadows of now, one we can taste, feel, and see something of the goodness of now, but it would be even better? Could you get excited about that?! I could get excited about that! We will be joined with our Lord Jesus Christ in a unity beyond our comprehension; we will have a glorified, ever-living life with Jesus that is beyond our imagination, an existence we have only shadows of now. And Even More All this and more is the picture of Heaven in the Bible! ANTICIPATION But in the meantime, Paul said in verse twentytwo, we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. That means that when sin came into the world, the curse of that sin touched the entire cosmos, and everything entered an inevitable state of decline and decay. And the whole earth, along with us, is in a sense groaning. Yet Paul was not saying that is evidence that something is passing away. Instead, he said the groaning really is labor; it really is travail. But most importantly, it is evidence that, like a woman in childbirth, there is something brand new that is on its way to be born. HOMESICKNESS I see the groaning as a cosmic homesickness. Have you ever been homesick? EARLY IN OUR MINISTRY, Anne and I spent some time serving as counselors for third graders at Camp Grier in Old Fort, North Carolina. Camp Grier, how I love you, how I love you, down in the valley! The program followed a pretty predictable pattern that would end with a campfire and it only takes a spark to pass it on It was good. Third graders would cry and accept Jesus and we would love them. Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 5 February 27, 2011

6 I cannot understand why anyone might preach that those who have become children of God might lose their salvation. That word, which is so contrary to the truth of the Gospel, robs people of the hope, the joy, the power, and the confidence of what it means to live as a redeemed son or daughter of God. Heaven is our ultimate destination and Nothing, NOTHING can thwart it. But back on the first or second night there was always at least one child, frequently some little boy on the top bunk, whom we would have to minister to: I can t sleep. What s wrong? I don t know. My tummy hurts. Do you feel like you re going to throw up? Well, sort of, but not really. Can I feel your head? Do you feel hot? Does your head hurt? Not really. Sorta. Let s take your temperature you don t have any temperature. We would talk with him for a while, and then we would hear the inevitable, I want to go home, and we would know it was yet another case of homesickness. W hen my brother Mark was a little boy, he went on a big adventure, two weeks at a hockey camp in Minnesota. That was a long way away from North Carolina. Mark didn t know anybody up there and he was all by himself. About the beginning of the second week Mark called and told our Dad that he wanted to come home, and my Dad s response reflected some good parenting. He said, No, you re not going to come home, but I m going to come up there. He then took time off work and he spent the rest of the week with Mark in Minnesota. I didn t fully remember all of that story until Mark was recounting it to me when my Dad died this past Fall. Mark informed me: Oh yeah, we went to an amusement park, and he even took me for a helicopter ride! You went for a helicopter ride, all because you were homesick in Minnesota????? That wasn t fair. Dad stayed with Mark and then they came home together. What a sweet picture. Paul seemed to be painting a similar picture in Romans eight. We are homesick right now because this world is not our home. We were made for another Home. BLESSED ASSURANCE You Are A Child of God Sometimes you say, I d just rather be home, and God says, Soon enough, but in the meantime I am going to be with you. I ll go through it with you. 13 You will not be an orphan in the world. 14 And so, once you have accepted Christ, God sends His Holy Spirit into your heart. And the first work of the Spirit is to show you by the Word of God and by spiritual revelation that you are a child of God; you have been adopted by God; everything is different now; you belong to Him, forever. NOTHING Will Separate You From God The Holy Spirit will continually assure you that NOTHING can separate you from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ. 15 He wants you to know, He wants you to be certain, He wants you to be confident, that not only are you saved, but that you belong to God forever. You are going to be with Him forever. And the Holy Spirit of God will continually assure you that the good you are experiencing now every joy, any measure of peace is just a deposit, for there is A WHOLE LOT MORE of this to come. This is just the firstfruit. This is merely a taste of Heaven, because you are now a child of God! Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 6 February 27, 2011

7 I cannot understand why anyone might preach that believers might lose their salvation, that those who have become children of God by accepting the gift of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ might not be saved anymore. That word, which is so contrary to the truth of the Gospel, robs people of the hope, the joy, the power, and the confidence of what it means to live as a redeemed son or daughter of God. Heaven is our ultimate destination and NOTHING, nothing can thwart it. GROANS OF THE COSMOS Earth is groaning, and so are we. C. S. Lewis, the brilliant literature scholar, discovered that once he became a Christian, one after another of his doubts were becoming convincing evidences. That was the work of the Holy Spirit. Lewis commented: If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. 16 If you have hunger for food, it is most probable that food must exist. A baby has never seen or tasted milk, for everything he has received has been through an umbilical cord, yet the baby hungers for milk. The explanation for that hunger is that milk must exist. If you are thirsty in the middle of the desert, your thirst is probable evidence that there is something to satisfy it. And, if you are longing for something more, it is evidence that something more does exist. When you suffer travails or you are homesick, don t despair. Those feelings are convincing evidence that you are longing for that which exists. If you experience brokenness in this world, and you long for a relationship filled with acceptance and unconditional perfect love, do not despair, your longing is simply the travail of one who is longing for the perfect love that does exist in Jesus Christ. If you LONG FOR SOMETHING greater than even your best moments in life; if you YEARN FOR MORE than fleeting moments; it is evidence that you have only tasted of the firstfruit. You have experienced a sneak preview. The Holy Spirit gives us glimpses of something that may be fleeting now, but is yet to come in its fullness. So we can see life as sneak previews for the coming attraction of Heaven! SNEAK PREVIEWS When I was a little kid I would watch sneak previews of upcoming movies. The preview was a very, very short version of the movie itself. It briefly played in its entirety, and then it was over. You wouldn t leave the theater after you had seen a sneak preview, for it was only an assurance, evidence of a movie which was yet to come. So if you liked the sneak preview, you were going to love the real thing, but you had to wait. Paul was teaching that the Holy Spirit is to us as believers firstfruits evidence, a guarantee of our inheritance in the saints. 17 He is a deposit in us, a foretaste, and He gives us glimpses of something that may be fleeting now, but is yet to come in its fullness. So we can see life as sneak previews from the Holy Spirit for the coming attraction of Heaven! A TASTE FOR MORE Even when we are walking in the abundant life of Jesus Christ, there is still something in us that wants more. Think of the best moments of your life a childhood birthday party, the birth of a baby, a Christmas morning, a time when you were loved and celebrated, the realization of a great dream, or a time of peace that passed all understanding. Then, as you see yourself in one of those moments, isn t it true that you yearn for more? There are times I still look back on our honeymoon. I love thinking about the week of our honeymoon. Nobody called us. Nobody wanted us to do anything for them. It was our honeymoon and everyone just smiled at us. No pressure. I ve thought I d like another honeymoon. We know the best moments are fleeting. On the one hand we know all the blessedness we have in Jesus is permanent. But when we think about the Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 7 February 27, 2011

8 Heaven will not only be the absence of pain and suffering; it will be the presence of everything you groan for now. taste we have had of those best moments, we want more. And so we agree with Paul. There is travail, even with the good. R eynolda Church gave our family the precious gift of the entire summer off last year. It began with some writing and some resting, and then came time for a round trip across the country, a privilege we so appreciated, and for which we are so thankful. We piled into a van and drove all the way across the country in six weeks, through the deserts and the plains, riding along old Route 66, gazing in awe at the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Ocean, and the waves beating the shore at Monterrey. We saw Yosemite, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Park, where snow topped the crests in the middle of August. On the way home we were still enjoying our time so much that we milked it one more time on the last day by visiting a horse farm in Kentucky. We didn t get onto the road until late that day, and it must have been close to midnight when we pulled the van back in the driveway after nine thousand miles of travel. How precious it was. As we emerged from the van, everybody had started into the house with a load of stuff, and I said, Everybody wait a minute. I need to have just one more moment. Come out here. I want us to hold each others hands and thank God. I wanted to enjoy the moment because I knew that all too soon everyone would be running off to their friends, their work and their schooling. So even the dream of dreams in this life was still fleeting, because there can be a great joy with a tinge of sadness beside it. When you feel that, and something in you groans, even just a little bit, remember that Paul said that is the Holy Spirit in you, reminding you that you are travailing in childbirth until the perfection of Heaven comes one day. It will never end. So when you are suffering, reinterpret the groan. REINTERPRET THE GROAN When you are rejected When you are rejected, the groan is telling you that one day there will be perfect acceptance. When you suffer from aging When you are aging, and your body is not cooperating; when tasks take longer to complete; when you can t remember where things are, why you went upstairs, why you came downstairs; that groan is telling you that you are going to be given a perfect body and a perfect mind. When you are grieving And when you are standing beside the grave of somebody you love, that groan is the Holy Spirit in you, reminding you that you weren t made to live in a place where ultimately people die. You were made for a place where people LIVE, forever! Heaven will not only be the absence of pain and suffering; it will be the presence of everything you groan for now. EVERYTHING NEW Understanding Heaven depends on understanding that God is going to make all things new. When humanity fell, God made a plan to redeem and restore humanity. He is not going to throw away His people, and He is not going to throw away the earth. Instead, like a new birth, there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth, and we will be the same people, but we will be new and perfect. AND SO, LET S MEDITATE! 23 we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 8 February 27, 2011

9 Today is a day to let go of the worries and fears of death, and to receive a fresh revelation from the Spirit assuring you of the glories ahead. God wants us to meditate on the promise of Heaven because our hope our confidence in our inheritance will determine how we live now, for whatever we have confidence in, we have victory in. So we do not disengage from this world because we know we one day will escape it. Instead, the promise and guarantee of our inheritance in the saints makes us more alive to this world today. And THAT is the Gospel! Father, we thank You in the precious and powerful name of the Lord Jesus for the assurance of salvation, for the promise of Heaven, and for the revelation of glory. And we ask, Lord, that you would minister profoundly in us, even this very moment, speak to us and show us, Lord. You have shown revelation and vision to the saints of old. You have deposited your Holy Spirit within us that we might be able to know that we are your children and not doubt it; to know that nothing can take away our blessedness in Jesus Christ, no matter what the travail of earth; and to know that the sufferings of this world are not the final answer, but that the glorification of a new Heaven, a new Earth, and of our resurrected bodies awaits us. God, we pray that You would reveal these things not by flesh and blood, but by your Spirit, that we might live in hope. In Jesus name we pray, AMEN. Maybe for some of you, today is the day for your first step. There is always a first step, a time when you know you want to place your trust in Jesus Christ and to live in the promise and assurance of Heaven. Today can be that day. Asking Christ into your heart is as simple as saying, Lord, I place my trust in You. Forgive me, assure me of my salvation by your Holy Spirit. For others of us, today is a day to let go of the worries and fears of death, and to receive a fresh revelation from the Spirit assuring you of the glories ahead. Open your heart, the Lord is here to speak. AFTER MEDITATING ON HEAVEN this past week, I am feeling certain and hopeful, and I am experiencing a fresh infusion of the power of the resurrected life. So come back next week. I m looking forward to sharing from the Scriptures a wealth of good news about Heaven! Sneak preview: What does it mean to have a resurrected body? What do you mean there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth? Alan D. Wright All rights reserved 9 February 27, 2011

10 Endnotes 1 Isaiah 26:3 2 Eternal: without beginning or end, lasting forever, always existing, Deuteronomy 33:27; Hebrews 9:14; Romans 1:20, 6:26; 1 Peter 5:10; Hebrews 9:14 3 Deuteronomy 32:15; 2 Samuel 22:47; Psalm 62:2, 6, 7; 89:26, 95:1 4 See also 2 Corinthians 4:17, 1 Peter 4:13, 5:1 5 Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10; Revelation 5:13 6 Luke 12:13-21, Ephesians 3:20 8 Deuteronomy 29:29; Job 11:7; Proverbs 25:2; Ecclesiastes 3:11, 8:17; Romans 11: Corinthians 2: Corinthians 12: Romans 8: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (London: Collector s Library, 2004) 9. First published in Isaiah 41:10, 42:16, 43:2; Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5 14 John 14:18; Romans 8:15 15 Romans 8: C. S. Lewis, Letter, 8 th November 1952, published in: Walter Hooper, ed., The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III (New York: HarperCollins) Ephesians 1:14 Alan D. Wright All rights reserved

11 Alan D. Wright All rights reserved May the Lord God bless you and keep you and be kind and gracious to you and make His face to shine upon you and give you His peace, today and every day forevermore. AMEN!

12 Sharing The Light Ministries is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that offers healing and hope by sharing the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. Visit to learn more about pastor and author Alan Wright, his books, audio products, podcasts, national radio broadcasts, and conferences. Also discover how you can become a partner in sharing the light of Jesus Christ. Alan D. Wright All rights reserved