Several times, the gospels portray people arriving at the gates of heaven and crying out for God only to be told that he doesn’t know them. In this episode, Gary Wilkerson and Joshua West discuss these sobering passages of the Bible and how they should inform believers’ lives.
A 1998 movie called City of Angels features Nicolas Cage as an angel who falls in love with a human woman. As an angelic being, he apparently has no sense of taste, smell or touch and only gains these after he becomes mortal in order to have a romantic relationship with this woman.
The recent film Northman is a surreal saga of one man’s revenge quest amid Norse myth and relentless brutality. The main character witnesses his father and then half of his hometown be murdered by his uncle and uncle’s followers. He barely escapes, only to witness his mother being carried off by the traitors. He swears to avenge his father and rescue his mother.
I sought the Lord in prayer and I asked him, “What is the most important aspect of your making us your temple?” Here’s what came to me: access with boldness and confidence.
Paul says of Christ, “in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him” (Ephesians 3:12).
As Christians in Paul’s day sensed the destruction of Jerusalem drawing near, they wanted to know more about prophetic events. They were fearful about rumors concerning the ruthlessness of invading armies who took multitudes captive into slavery. It caused these believers to sense that perilous times were close at hand. They asked Paul to tell them more about what was to come and how to read the times.
Enoch enjoyed close fellowship with the Lord. In fact, his communion with God was so intimate that the Lord translated him to glory long before his life on earth might have ended. “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found, because God had taken him’; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5, NKJV).
Consider the way God himself described his relationship with Abraham: “Abraham my friend” (Isaiah 41:8, NKJV). Likewise, the New Testament tells us, “Abraham believed God…and he was called the friend of God” (James 2:23).
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
