Rainbow Books
Margaret Litchfield (Marianne
Christian), RIP 2015
HEAVEN - MY DESTINATION?
Seeker: Is all a myth or is there really a place called Heaven?
And, if it does exist, what are the entry requirements? Something
inside me (God's voice in my spirit?) tells me that Heaven is the
place where kind, loving people go. I am drawn to goodness and
when I see hurting people I want to help them. But is this what
Christians mean when they talk of people of good will going to
Heaven?
Christian: "God is love and anyone who lives in love is living
with God and God is living in him." I'm quoting from the New
Testament but you yourself must have noticed that when you are
drawn to some one it is because they radiate love, joy or peace.
God's qualities. Whether or not some one knows Him, every single
person has God's love and His divine spark dwelling within them.
Seeker: So how can it matter whether we know Him or not?
Christian: That's like asking whether a life lived without a
glimpse of the sun is just as good. Those who do so might believe
it - until one day they go over the brow of a hill and see a
sunlit country spread before them. They walk on in rapture,
feeling the warmth of the sun on their skin, seeing lakes and
rivers sparkling like diamonds and every flower and tree bathed in
gold. Believe me, once having experienced this, they would never
choose to go back to their former shadowy existence.
Seeker: Are you saying that Heaven is like earth on a sunny day?
Christian: No. I'm saying that Christianity is God coming to us
offering us a love relationship with Himself. And those who accept
that invitation start experiencing heaven on earth.
Seeker: But most people I know live a good moral life and they are
perfectly satisfied.
Christian: C.S. Lewis said: "We were not made for morality but to
be remade, to become sons of God - strong, wise, radiant, drenched
with joy." Doesn't that appeal to you?
Seeker: It's all right for you. You have faith. But I haven't been
given any!
Christian: Everyone has faith in something. When you sit on a
chair you have faith - that it will hold your weight. When you put
a key into a lock you have faith - that it will open the door for
you. When you get out of bed in the morning you have faith - that
your legs will hold you upright and that the floor is level for
you to stand on.
Your experience of life has shown you those things in which you
can have faith. But faith in God isn't something you wait for. It
is something you choose for yourself.
Seeker: How? If I have no experience of God?
Christian: If seeing all His beautiful works all around you is not
enough, look to the past. Read the stories His friends have
written in the Bible. It has been proved beyond all doubt that a
man called Jesus Christ really existed. All you have to do is to
study His words and actions. Are they infused with love through
and through? If you ask, the Spirit of God within you will tell
you whether or not it is all true.
Seeker: I still say that I need faith to know whether it is frue!
Christian: C.S. Lewis said: "It needs far greater faith to believe
that Christianity is not true; that the historical facts of the
Christian faith are fairy tales; that Christ's teaching is false
and that the experience of Christians all down the centuries has
been based on delusion. The has no evidence: he has only his own
personal opinion that all Jesus taught was either not true or not
important."
Seeker: I know that Jesus Christ once lived and I admire all His
words. But that hasn't given me faith!
Christian: Faith isn't believing certain things in our mind but is
actively trusting God. We say to Him: "You have said it so I'm
going to act on it. I will do what you ask and I will trust You to
bring me to the joy You promise all those who believe in You." In
other words, faith is a tiny seed of willingness to put God to the
test, to do what He has told us to do.
Seeker: You expect me to change my whole life because of some one
who lived 2000 years ago!
Christian: No. Because of Someone who is alive today, has always
existed, and Who will always exist.
Seeker: All you say may be true but how can I have a relationship
with someone whom I can neither see nor hear?
Christian: Once you actively turn your life over to God, you will
hear
Seeker: For which I need faith! Where is it to come from?
Christian: Lack of faith comes from not knowing God and what He is
like. Read His book and ask His Spirit inside you to bring it
alive and teach you all you need to know. Having faith means
having faith in God's love for you. When you discover all He has
done for you, you will not doubt it.
Seeker: I already know the Christian story and sometimes when I
pass a church I wish I were inside worshipping with faith. At
school we used to sing: "God is love, God is truth, God is beauty,
praise Him!" I wish I were convinced. But not all the Christians I
know shine with light and truth.
Christian: Look at stained glass windows from outside and you will
not see much to admire. You need to be inside the church with the
sun streaming in to see the beauty. Men are fallible and often a
poor advertisement for the God they believe in but at least they
are all on the same journey - a journey into Love. God created us
so that we could walk as friends with Him. What a terrible waste
to iglore the most loving Friend ydu could ever have!
Seeker: This world seems real to me and the things you speak of
seem to have no substance. I have friends whom I can see, hear,
touch, talk to. I am content with what I have.
Christian: Yes, this world is real but so is death - and where
will we all go then? Christians know that they are pilgrim people
who have checked into the Earth Hotel overnight. They know their
next destination. Know too that eternity will not finish even
after a million, million years. Isn't it rather important to make
your booking for eternity now while you can?
Seeker: You'll be quoting Pilgrim 's Progress next!
Christian: No, but I'll quote someone else: ''When we become a
Christian, we leave the city of destruction and become a pilgrim
through this confused and wonderful world, in fellowship with
others of like mind, travelling to that other city where all our
bright hopes become reality."
Seeker: I know that we are born to die. I will wait until then to
see what happens next.
Christian: We are not born to die - but to live eternally. Go
right back to the story of the first man, Adam, and you will find
out that God created us to be His friends. We were created for
joy. He is the friend we are all born with, the friend who dwells
within us.
Seeker: But is He really there? It doesn't seem so when so many
things go wrong.
Christian: Someone wrote of His Presence: "He is present in the
darkness of despair and the light of hope. He is in laughter and
the cry of pain. He is in noon and midnight, each distant star,
each drop of water in the ocean, each blade of grass. He is in the
wind, the surf, the voice of a child, in the love we find from
others."
Seeker: But what does that mean? When I am in pain, I feel very
alone and helpless.
Christian: A child left alone in school for the first time feels
alone and helpless. Yet his mother loves him deeply and is aware
of his feelings. She leaves him there because she knows he is in
good hands and that it is necessary for him to be there. So too,
everything that happens to us is part of God's plan for us. He
knows; He cares; He is watching over you.
Seeker: But whether I know that or not, I'll probably live exactly
the same kind of life, so how can it matter what I believe?
Christian: Every thought, word and action of each of us adds
either to the light in the world or the darkness. Obeying the ten
commandments (which are ten rules for happiness) adds to the light
and means that we are on the side of Love. Even if we've never
heard God's commandments, there is a voice within us telling us
what they are.
Seeker: So I can be a Christian without knowing it?
Christian: No. You can be part of God's Kingdom of Love.
("Whatever you do to the least of My brethren, you do unto Me. ")
But you're not a Christian unless you know Jesus Christ - and by
knowing Him, I mean accepting gratefully what He has done for you
and loving Him for it. The Gospel is a love story, the story of
God's love for us. Before Jesus came, we didn't know what God was
like and what we were meant to be.
Seeker: I try to be loving and help others. Isn't this what I'm
meant to?
Christian: So you've never done anything in your life of which you
are ashamed now? You never say something you wish you hadn't,
never think unkindly of someone who has provoked you?
Seeker: Of course I have and do. But people who have faith can say
the same!
Christian: That is frue. But when we do something wrong, we have a
Father to whom we can run and say "I'm sorry," knowing that we
will be forgiven and hugged lovingly. And when we're tempted to go
the wrong way, we have a Friend we call
Seeker: Don't you find all the commandments and restrictions of
your church community restricting?
Christian: On the contrary. Once we become Christians, we are set
free. And our freedom means that we don't have to do anything but
love. Love is the only rule of the Kingdom of Love where Jesus is
King.
Seeker: You're not talking about Heaven but life on this earth?
Christian: Yes. Someone said: "The Kingdom of God is the Light of
the World shining through hearts touched by His love." It means
that once we believe with our hearts rather than with our heads,
we can start living richly now.
Seeker: What do you mean?
Christian: Once we recognise who Jesus is and accept what He has
done for us (going to certain death to pay for our sins) then we
inherit all the riches He won for us on Calvary. He has untold
wealth and we are His heirs. Read His will, His testaments, if you
want to know exactly what He has bequeathed to us!
Seeker: I've tried to read the Bible but I find it utterly
confusing.
Christian: The whole book is simply our Father God teaching His
children to live His way. Don't worry about the Old Testament for
now. There is enough instruction in the New Testament to show you
the way to Heaven.
Seeker: You've already said that we each have a conscience inside
us which guides us, so why should I need to read the Bible?
Christian: Conscience and your own feelings are sometimes
difficult to separate. Pilots don't guide a plane by their
feelings! The Bible is our safe instrument and will keep us on a
straight course.
Seeker: Pilots know that their instruments work! I've only your
word that the guidance given in the Bible will be worth having!
Christian: We're back to faith. Faith is God offering you a boat
and oars. Are you going to accept them? Putting it another way,
Jesus is asking you to make a definite decision about having a
love relationship with Him, just as a young man in love asks his
girl to accept him.
Seeker: Yes, but it's easy for the girl to accept him because she
knows and loves him too!
Christian: Faith is a matter of the will rather than emotion. We
cannot help our feelings but we can choose to trust. You say that
you want to know the truth. Jesus says: "l am the truth. "
Seeker: It sounds like a leap into the dark to me!
Christian: No. It's a leap into the light of His Presence. Faith
is not an intellectual response. It is a small hand placed
trustingly into His large one. It is jumping into the ocean of
God's love so that we are filled and surrounded by it.
Seeker: If I could see such an ocean, I would jump into it...