Heaven Coach

What is Clarity? Clarity is the quality or state of being clear. Clarity from God is what He provides and unfortunately people clarify FOR YOU what God has delivered and it is just what they think. Nonetheless, God’s word is exceedingly clear but few have the clarity that comes from God – The word of God! You ought to know the will of God and instead you have the will of men mixed with the word of God and that has no value. God, has not brought the confusion to the world of religion, but over the years and to this day men and women have changed the word of God to their own benefit. Hard to believe, yes but test the word of God without a filter and there will be no confusion. God makes it clear that the confusion does not come from Him.

1 Cor 14:33

33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace

Clarity From God – Perhaps Not What You Want

God has not left you without the basics but they are not written in the sky. His purpose for you is to have the will to search for truth, find it and act on it. You will have to overcome all those who tell you God does not exist and they often say it by ridiculing morality, laughing at those who see God in creation, believing unquestionably that you evolved from a lower form. You will have to overcome the things you want so badly but are not consistent with what God approves. You will have to overcome most of the religious teaching that fills the world and is often very convincing but does not come from God. In many cases you will have to choose between friends and family and the things God would have you do.
Why in the world would you do all that – sounds very difficult and certainly will not necessarily make your life very pleasant. You would do this because of your love of God, your unselfishness and your love of your fellow man. I would not expect a person to love God without understanding God and so the following are what I will refer to as Divine basics. These are typically things which man could never know unless God revealed them. Of course, there are many things that God has revealed through His creation and these allow a person to know of God’s existence. Even in this you must overcome people who tell you there was no creator but all the design you see just happened from nothing. Divine basics go deeper and reveal God in ways you could not conceive using only your senses. Divine basics will strengthen your belief in God and God as the God of the bible. They will overwhelm you and this information will allow you to do the things mentioned at the beginning of this section. Of course, it depends on you – how badly do you want heaven. Before we introduce some Divine Basics let me provide some things which God uses to describe heaven.

2 Cor 4:17, 18 ETERNAL

17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

1 Cor 2:9 THE WONDER

9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Romans 8:28 ENCOURAGEMENT

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:18 NO COMPARISON

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

So with some thought we can see
that life is ultimately not about this life.

In the above verses life is about the soul,
about your eternal life and living this life correctly is essential to success, to achieving heaven.

• First, we see heaven as eternal and for this reason you ought to be concerned. You will live forever, you have no choice.
• Second, the wonder of heaven is beyond our imagination and it is prepared by God for those who love Him and we learn repeatedly from scripture that those who love Him keep His commandments.
• Third, God encourages us to realize that the difficulties of living life correctly are worth it and that behind living correctly is the purpose of God. Namely, heaven for those who succeed.
• Fourth, that even the sufferings of this life cannot be compared to what God has in mind for us, indeed there is no comparison. Heaven is so wonderful, beyond description and eternal while the earthly suffering can be bad it is bearable and short-lived.

Ready For Divine Basics?

The following are just a few things that reveal God’s character and thus how He sees things and thus should drive our behavior. Well, we will decide if they will drive our behavior – it is always up to us!
 

Principle One: Choice

In fact, we can call choice the first basic point – man’s free will. This is the cornerstone of God’s purpose – you decide! Much of the suffering in the world is the result of allowing man to choose and frequently men hurt other men. Not deciding for God or not deciding in any way are both rejecting God and thus rejecting heaven. So your fate is in your control, but having “a fate of some kind” is something over which you have no control – you are eternal and can do nothing about it. You may not like it but you cannot change it. You reject God, the eternal, and you change nothing.

Principle Two: No Substitutes

The next few principles are examples which God provides man to help sort through the many issues and questions which confront mankind. We will begin with Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. You can read about them in Genesis 4.1-11 but here is the lesson and the “Second Principle.” God accepted the sacrifice of Abel and not that of Cain and although there are few details we know Abel brought the best and in some way Cain did not. Cain would be the first in what would become commonplace as man provides God with substitutes or things that men/women believe will please God. The lesson is God will not accept substitutes, He never has and He never will. You think you know how to please God, you have this really good idea. If it is different than God directed it will be received by God the same way as Cain’s sacrifice. So we have hundreds of religions and man says it does not matter, they all praise God. “They are all bringing a sacrifice.” We have hundreds of “Christian” groups and they all do things differently but they accept Christ as their savior so God will accept them. Is God saying He will accept them? No, but man has decided God will accept them. There is nothing more obnoxious to God than to speak for God and that is why God tells us if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God, that is as God speaks. You want to go to heaven do what God says and not what man tells you God says. NO SUBSTITUTES!

 

Principle Three: Obedience Better Than Sacrifice

There is perhaps no lesson every person interested in the truth should learn than that of Saul and the Amalekites. You can read about what happened in 1 Samuel 15.1-35. God provided this incident so you could better understand Him and what He requires. It is a lesson that should be at the core of every religious person’s beliefs. This principle is found throughout the bible but is very dramatic in the case of Saul. Everything God has done and revealed has significance and somethings like this incident are very powerful. In today’s world people would look at Saul and think he did the right thing. He might even be a hero for his actions. He would have made a good politician.
God told Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites but Saul decided to spare some and keep the best of the spoils. He would say because he feared the people who argued with him and decided to appease them and then added he brought the best for God.

The lessons from Saul and the Amalekites:
God must be obeyed, there are no excuses.

God can take human life because He is God and in this case ordered Saul (through the prophet Samuel) to utterly destroy the Amalekites. Man cannot take another’s man’s life but God can so direct man and did so in this case. Men, women and children were to all be destroyed as well as their possessions. God gives life and God can take life and God makes the rules and quite often people feel they are better than such a God. They say this cannot be God! Yet, do they really know this is not God? Of course not, all they know is if they judge God as though He were a man they cannot accept such a God. You fall into the pride trap and think you can judge God – you fail the test.

Saul thought it would be a good excuse to say the best was spared for sacrifice to God – he knew God demanded the best. Samuel, God’s prophet was horrified at what Saul had done and tells Saul, “It is better to Obey than sacrifice.” The exchange between Saul and Samuel after Saul’s return from the battle with the Amalekites is quite revealing. Saul blames the people (his soldiers) and explains the spoil was for sacrifice to God.

1 Samuel 15.20-23

20 And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.”
22 So Samuel said:
“Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
He also has rejected you from being king.”

So today we have a world of religious people who believe it is better to sacrifice than obey. So like Saul we believe God must accept our way of doing things when indeed life if you want to go to heaven is about doing things God’s way. There are literally thousands of religious practices that are not authorized where religious leaders say isn’t this a wonderful thing we are doing for God. The lesson of Saul needed to be powerful for you to understand that God is serious about obedience. It is so powerful that many will reject God as the God of the bible on this basis while some will understand how God views obedience. God knew it would take a dedication to truth and a strong desire to obey that truth and provided in Saul an example that would sort out those who love Him from those who do not.
When you understand God correctly, it is a wonderful thing as you understand what life is all about. One of the posts at this site might help in regard to both the case of Saul and the Amalekites as well as other similar cases such as that of Nadab and Abihu which follow as part of principle 5 below. The post is called, “God’s Apparent Harshness, A Difficulty For Some.”

 

Principle Four: Your Logic vs The Wisdom In Deciding To Follow God

Another lesson God provides to us from the Old Testament involves the leper Naaman in 2 Kings 5.1-19.
Pause: You might wonder if we live under the law of Christ, the New Testament, why are these lessons from the Old Testament. The law changed as part of God’s plan but God has not changed. Paul wrote in the New Testament in Romans 15.4
4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
We are studying the principles of God in relation to mankind and they are consistent for all time. 

Naaman’s Leprosy

Now, back to Naaman the commander of the army of the king of Syria, and again you can read the case of Naaman in 2 Kings 5.1-19. God, through the prophet Elisha is going to heal Naaman but he must dip in the river Jordon seven times. Naaman takes some issue with the method and suggests the Abanah or Pharpar rivers which were apparently cleaner. Strangely, Naaman is even furious at the method and says, “surely he (Elisha) will come to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God and wave his hand over the place (of Naaman’s leprosy), and heal the leprosy. You see many of these principles (above) are fundamentally the same, they involve obedience. People are making decisions and on one side is what God says and on the other is their pride. Well in Naaman’s case he does not follow his personal logic really his pride but obeys God and of course receives the promise – he is cured of leprosy. It is a great lesson and it is for your understanding. Naaman had an advantage in that without obedience his leprosy would not go away. You have sin and in obedience to God and only in obedience to God can you be sure it is gone. It is what Romans 16.25 refers to as Obedience to the Faith. When you obey God it cannot be what some man says you must do but it must be what God requires of you. That is, the truth from God!

 

Principle Five: Revisiting Principle Two – No Substitutes

Man always has a better way and this is exactly what life’s test is all about. You believe you and the world, universe exist independent of God. You have no proof but you hold to it fervently and might even die for your belief. You substitute the obvious for what some men teach, for instance that, “all this” happened from nothing. The son’s of Aaron were Nadab and Abihu and they knew the appropriate means to honor God in this specific ceremony but substituted “a strange fire” and God immediately destroyed them by fire. Again, God has shown man that it is serious business to follow God’s ways. All this is for your learning (Romans 15.4) yet many do not know these principles. Many do know these principles and strangely pay them no heed.

 

Summary:

These same principles are taught in many different examples throughout scripture. There are other important principles such as not adding to or taking away from God’s word or as said in Galatians 1.6-9 preaching another Gospel. As we understand God as He has revealed Himself, His principles can guide us to make the right choices in life leading to eternal life.