HEAVEN’S BOOT CAMP MARK 8:34-37 Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t take us immediately to heaven after we accept Jesus as our Savior? I believe the bible gives us some clues to that answer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In many places the bible, both from Jesus’ teachings and Paul’s letters, we are directed to be co-participants in God’s kingdom work here on earth. Jesus also in Mark 8 talks about us taking up our cross and following Him. This is where I’ve gotten the notion of heaven’s boot camp. Jesus paints some negative pictures of denying self and taking up a cross compared to cultural messages around us of success and fulfilling our wants and desires. The military picture of boot camp also brings negative images of stress, pain, fatigue, and sometimes failure. Based on these images, why would we want to be a part of this? Let’s start with boot camp. The purposes of boot camp are training, discipline, building strength, developing obedience, and transformation of our purposes. I believe most soldiers, though hating boot camp at first, would later say that this initial training was important to their ultimate success in achieving their goals. What about Jesus’ challenges that appear both negative and difficult to achieve. The bible is very clear that accepting Christ as our savior involves seeing ourselves as sinners and accepting the fact that we alone can’t fix the resulting gap that separates us from God. It also challenges us in a second aspect that we sometimes avoid or ignore. In becoming a follower of Christ we are called to a change of heart, mind, and perspective. The theological term is sanctification. Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 5 as becoming “a new creation”. Since original sin is the desire to put ourselves in first place that carries forward from Adam to all of us, this must be transformed into a willingness to put God’s desires and plans above ours. This is what I believe Jesus means to deny ourselves. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that we are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Jesus’ primary purpose in coming to earth was to go to the cross for our sins. When He says, “take up our cross” I believe He means for each of us to take up the special purposes God placed us here to accomplish. Don’t you think it would be difficult to go straight to heaven without the change in heart, mind, and perspective that heaven’s boot camp brings?
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:40:40 +0000