Randy Alcorn Heaven

uh heaven and the new earth from the bible and c.s lewis it's wonderful for me to be with you so let me just start on a personal level i grew up in a home without christ i felt this unbearable sense of emptiness and i gazed through my telescope in awe of the vastness of the universe and and i felt completely disconnected though without mean and purpose and i was invited to a church youth group and started reading the bible and i had you know no reference points at all so it was not just the book of leviticus that confused me it was pretty much everything but when i reached the gospels i was so immediately fascinated by jesus and at first you know i thought he was fiction a superhero like in the comics but everything about jesus had the ring of truth and i realized something incredible while reading the bible i had come to believe that jesus was real and really by a miracle of grace the lord transformed my life and many of you have experienced that as well but the way that this connects with tonight is that i was hungry for truth so i visited a christian bookstore uh and it was actually in the garage of a private home of an elderly couple and i found a book called the problem of pain and that was the first time i had seen the name c.s lewis i bought it i read it i loved it and i was just stunned by lewis's insight and clarity he remembered what it was like to to not know god just like i did and he spoke of longing and i knew what longing was in my life and louis in the prom of pain cited romans 8 18 which says the sufferings of this present life or this present time cannot be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us and then he said a book on suffering which says nothing about heaven is leading out almost the whole of one side of the account scripture and tradition habitually put the joys of heaven louis says onto the scale against the sufferings of earth and no solution to the problem of pain which does not deal with this cannot be called a christian name and deals with this in the context he was talking about heaven if you don't talk about heaven then you ultimately don't have a solution to the problem of evil and suffering that's so huge in our lives and he's absolutely right yet i've read many christian books on evil and suffering i read 60 plus when i was writing my book on the problem of evil and suffering if god is good but many of them say almost nothing about heaven even the christian books they'll just mention it in passing and i truly believe a weak understanding of heaven results in a faith that can't stand up in the face of suffering and that's when this gets uh very uh very practical in in every way uh lewis had left atheism and agnosticism and come to embrace a biblical worldview which he believed had a far greater explanatory power than his atheism and that really resonated with me so i went back to that christian bookstore uh and and guess what i found lewis's space trilogy and i thought i had to leave science fiction behind me you know imagination was a sin i thought as a young christian i i don't know how i got that impression but there was such deep theology uh in perillandra alone uh i just ate it up and then i read narnia and it deepened my longing not just for what uh theologians call the intermediate heaven or the present heaven but the future post-resurrection heaven which the bible calls the new earth uh ripa cheap the valiant mouse was uh you know going after ashland's country pursuing it seeking a person and a place that he was made for a real physical place paul says in second corinthians 4 17 this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond all comparison anyway check out second corinthians 11 sometime for a record of what paul is calling light and momentary afflictions because you could say oh well this guy whoever he is he doesn't really know what the kinds of afflictions that i've been facing well he lists these light and momentary afflictions prison flogging five times the 40 lashes minus one three times beaten with rod stone shipwrecks spin a day and night in the open sea rivers bandits you know he talks about danger from jews danger from gentiles danger everywhere he went often without sleep hungry thirsty uh naked cold and then he says on top of everything else is this burden that i have for the churches and again if this is light and momentary what could paul be talking about because does it seem almost offensive i mean my wife is in stage four cancer right now uh it's in her lymph nodes um our dear dog is is dying of cancer dear friends who are facing everything a close friend whose wife is struggling with dementia okay so does it seem like an insult to call these light and momentary sufferings well what we've got to do i think is is uh weigh them against what's on the other side of the scales that's what paul is saying to do that's the eternal weight of glory and and it's like okay so you maybe you feel like your sufferings are the rock of drew walder i mean that's a big rock right that's really heavy incredibly heavy but then what if on the other side god placed on those scales the planet jupiter you know or a galaxy you know or the universe itself and then all of a sudden you'd go wow okay this is an eternal weight of glory and that's what god is is telling us in in verse 20 of romans 8 following uh where paul has said what he does about light and momentary afflictions or a parallel passage to that that is he says for the creation was subjected to futility as we human stewards fell the the whole creation fell under us it fell on our coattails and this is the curse and and god has put into us a nostalgia for an eden that you know we've never really known we've never really experienced eden firsthand but but we have this sense that that's the way it's supposed to be and something is badly wrong with this world and that's what romans 8 is telling us something is badly wrong in verse 21 it says in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of god the same creation that fell on humanity's coattails shall rise on its coattails that's what we're told in this great passage verse 22 says for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pangs of childbirth until now but the groaning is not death you know it's the difference between death and childbirth it's the coming of new life even with its pains and it says in this passage that the whole creation not just people but the whole creation suffers well what else suffers besides human beings well figuratively forests and mountains and meadows maybe but literally animals experience suffering and not only the the whole creation but we are ourselves we're told in the next verse who have the first fruits of the spirit we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as god's children the redemption of our bodies so the whole creation is groaning as it awaits something and what it awaits is the redemption of our bodies that's the resurrection and the resurrection is the key understanding the resurrection is the key to understanding heaven and the nature of the eternal heaven god has in store for us resurrection is the hinge also upon which the problem of evil and suffering uh turns so again it's what's what's on that other side of uh of suffering uh that everything else um our life here uh pales in comparison to so the key to creation's redemption is our own resurrection and the resurrected christ said to the apostles look at me the resurrected jesus look at me look at my hands look at my feet it is i myself the same jesus who walked this earth with you that's like job says in job uh 19 19 uh believing that i i know one day i will see my redeemer on a new earth i will see him with my own eyes i and not another um the resurrected christ said to the apostles look at my hands my feet it's i myself he says touch and see um he said i'm not a ghost he says a ghost doesn't have flesh and bones as i have so he's telling us about his resurrection body it has flesh and bones and remember how he aiden drank with the disciples and and what did he do uh you know i mean the the food stayed inside of me he didn't fall through him like he was a ghost um and he actually fixed breakfast for the disciples and he was with them 40 days in a physical resurrection body he says you know touch me handle me says to thomas you know see who i really am this is really me so christ's resurrection body we're told in scripture is the first fruit so the prototype of ours he walked the earth we will walk the earth the resurrected jesus occupied space we will occupy space and yes there will be time though i don't have time right now to get into that but it's it's not just our bodies that will rise it's the earth itself it's not just that god redeemed us but he's going to redeem the whole world you know sometimes we think we look at the early chapters of genesis and god designed man and woman to rule the earth to his glory and then we think we imagine sometimes oh satan satan destroyed all that satan completely dismantled the plan of god because men and women i mean how many men and women in all history knew what it was to rule the earth to the glory of god i mean adam and eve and then sin and curse came into the world but god teaches that satan didn't win that the whole point of jesus coming is not simply to snatch our souls out of this world so they can go off and live in a disembodied spirit realm of angelic beings rather it's that he redeems us and his plan is to redeem the earth itself so how far will redemption reach i'm glad you asked that question uh isaac watts was not just a great hymn writer he's a great theologian and he nailed it in joy to the world where he says far as the curse is found that's how far redemption goes far as the curse is found god's redemptive plan includes not only human beings but all the groaning creation people and animals and the earth itself and god will not abandon his creation he will redeem it isaiah 65 17 says behold i will create new heavens and a new earth and just eight verses later it says this the wolf and the lamb will feed together and the lion will eat straw like the odds they will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountains says the lord this is even restored and even magnified and a lot of people only apply those verses about the animals in isaiah 65 and other passages to a thousand-year millennial kingdom now a lot of people have different beliefs on this and we don't have to believe the same thing about the millennium uh there's amillennialists and there's uh post millennialists and premillennialists i believe in literal millennium but i don't believe that that's exclusively what this pastor is talking about and the big clue is it says it's talking about the new earth so yeah there's things in that passage that have to be understood and interpreted in light of that reality but nevertheless we're told that all creation is going to be in harmony and that's the way god designed it and it was experienced by only a couple of people and those original animals in the garden but ii peter 3 tells us we are looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells i mean righteousness uh the world full of righteousness now when the bible talks about a new word some people act as if well is it i mean it's not gonna be like a real earth it's not gonna be like this earth well think about this if i say i'm going to give you a new car which i'm not going to but if i said that um what would you think would you think well that car isn't going to have an engine and it's not going to have a transmission and it's not going to have a steering wheel it's not going to have brakes and it's not going to have no if it didn't have those things it wouldn't be a car a car is a car a new car is a car a new body will be a body we know this look at the body of jesus they recognized him he had the the the body parts he had hands and feet he was showing them he was he was fixing meals and eating them with them so a new body is a body a new earth will be what and earth first and foremost it will be an earth not an honor uh see new is the adjective and earth is the noun and nouns are the main thing god would not call it a new earth if it was not a real earth god has a good vocabulary and he knows how to use words okay our bodies are going to be destroyed at death right but they will be resurrected so that the new bodies are the old bodies made new we know that christ's resurrection body was the same body that died how do we know that because the tomb was empty and because he showed them the scars now i don't think any others of us will have scars from this life but he took our sufferings and our sin upon himself and that's the story of redemption but in any case we're told in second peter 3 the old earth the earth we're on right now that earth under the curse that earth will be destroyed so some people say well then what are you talking about an earth in our future well that's what the new earth is because the old earth that's destroyed will be raised in the form of the new earth just as our old bodies will be raised in the form of our new bodies so um there's an eye ring here and that is that people today often um you know edit the bible to make it sort of say and mean supposedly what they want it to to fit their desires but the really truly ironic thing is that what the bible actually teaches about heaven is far more attractive than what we usually believe yeah there's the present heaven that's where we go when we die to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord wonderful that's that's a great thing to to die and be with christ paul says is better by far that's the present heaven where god's dwells now where god's throne is now where god's people dwell now but here's the radical teaching of the ba of the bible revelation 18 there will be resurrection and after the resurrection there will be revelation 21 there will be a new heavens and a new earth and that and then god will relocate we'll talk about this in a couple of minutes but we'll relocate heaven from where it is presently the present heaven to the new earth and all his resurrected people will live on this new earth the reason why we don't go immediately to the new earth when we die is the resurrection hasn't happened yet and god creates the new earth after the resurrection says here's my place for you to live forever and i will dwell with you so one of the greatest gifts we can give our children and our grandchildren is to teach them the doctrine of the resurrection and the new earth and teach them they're made for a person and a place jesus is the person heaven and ultimately the new earth the the eternal heaven uh is is the place they were made for so god made adam from the earth and he made him for the earth and he made him to walk on the earth and to rule the earth along with eve and that was not a mistake and that's why a platonic disembodied uh spirit which the bible does not teach at all is just uh not the satisfactory answer paul says in first corinthians 15 if there is no resurrection we are of all people most to be pity so our physical sufferings on earth uh just can't be rectified by a disembodied existence in a in another world these very bodies that suffered will be raised and live without suffering on the new earth and and in that promise of the new earth in revelation 21 and verse 4 uh jesus says he will wipe away the tears from every eye and i think not just the tears from our eyes but the reason for the tears of all the suffering says there will be no more suffering there will be no more pain there will be no more death and revelation 22 says no more sin the curse will be lifted um what a beautiful thing it will be so god's ultimate planet of redemption is not relocating us as disembodied spirits to live forever in an angelic realm but to bring us down ultimately to a new earth that he will create where we will live as resurrected believers we meaning we who know christ now you do need to place your faith in christ this is not a heaven is automatically for everybody uh because the bible teaches that we're sinners but for the redeemed people of god who have accepted the gift of eternal life offered by jesus christ uh redemption is not the end of life in this world ultimately it brings us back to for eternal life in this world so the exact wording of revelation 21 actually i'm gonna uh take parts of the first four verses is then i saw a new heaven and a new earth and i saw the holy city the new jerusalem coming down out of heaven from god so you see that's an explicit statement that heaven will be relocated from where it is now what we call the present heaven or intermediate heaven sometimes theologians call it and he will bring it down he'll bring heaven down to earth literally heaven on earth will there be heaven on earth well we can't make it that way human beings won't make it heaven on earth but god will bring heaven down to earth and then it says i heard a loud voice calling from the throne behold the dwelling place of god is with man and that means all men and women mankind and then he says it twice more god will dwell with them where on the new earth and god himself will be with them again he says it three times in one verse but for some reason we some sometimes just don't don't get it but that's what it's saying god will come down and dwell with us on the new earth and he will relocate his throne there we see his throne in revelation 22 his new dwelling place revelation 21 will be on the earth well where is heaven heaven is wherever god's throne and dwelling place are so the present heaven is going uh you know when we when we die if we know jesus and we go to live with god what we're doing is we're going to live with god in his place and that's the way we routinely think of heaven and for now that's true we go to live with god in his place but the new earth that is promised in revelation 21 and 22 and isaiah 65 and 2nd peter 3 13 and other places in the bible the new earth is god coming down to live with us in our place and bringing his people down to planet earth redeemed earth new earth to live with us in our place and that's emmanuel remember that name of jesus god with us so it's not ultimately the eternal heaven is not us going up to living with god in his place it's god coming down to live with us in our place and the resurrected christ the king of the humanity the king of kings ruling over the new earth and under him his kings and queens uh you know uh ruling some who have been faithful in this much who are ruling over five cities and some ruling over ten cities and dwelling together and celebrating uh on that new earth it says his servants will serve him you think it's going to be boring no servants always have things to do places to go people to see you only think of heaven as boring if you think it as drifting around in this uh spirit realm that wasn't really made for human beings but god has made a place for us and the ultimate place for now he's made a place for us in the present heavens is a great wonderful place but he's going to relocate it to the new earth so this is the the marvelous truth and lewis saw this he saw it and he wrote about it in mere christianity he said christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body which believes that matter is good that god himself once took on a human body and that some kind of body is going to be given us even in heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness our beauty and our energy so new bodies without the new earth would make no sense whatsoever physical bodies aren't meant to float around in a spirit realm we need to walk on ground eating and drinking jesus talks about in god's kingdom uh eating and drinking six or seven times in the gospels in the four loves lewis wrote we may hope that the resurrection of the body also means the resurrection of what may be called our greater body the general fabric of our earthly life with its affections and relationships well it's not just that we may hope i mean i'll go so far as to say we have clear biblically revealed reasons to believe in the resurrection of our greater body you know not just our physical body but the greater body that he met was the earth itself and lewis talked about the present heaven more than he talked about the new earth actually in some ways the only place other than illusions or hints like this that i just read the only place he really talks about the new earth but he talks about it gloriously is in the form of the new narnia at the end of um the last battle the final of the of the narnian books but uh even if again if we weren't told there's going to be a new earth we'd almost have to suppose there was because where are all these new bodies going to live where are we going to be when we eat and drink i mean aren't we going to have tables and isn't there going to be a floor and isn't there going to be ground to live in him to live on and the answer is yes the resurrection demands a new earth the body promises it uh do we see this in scripture oh absolutely isaiah 60 isaiah 65 revelation 21 22 they all talk about the new earth and at the end of revelation 21 uh it talks about god's uh children ruling the earth because it talks about the kings of the nations of the earth will bring their glory into the new jerusalem and its gates will never be shut and they will bring you to its splendors and the honor of the nations well what are these splendors i think i think they're probably tributes uh people making stuff creativity continuing we'll still be in the image of god and we'll be all the more in the image of god in the sense that sin will not in any way tarnish us or hold us back hold back our imagination and our creativity so i think they'll bring in tributes to the king of kings revelation 22 says his servants will serve him well that's redeemed work and and redeemed rest and redeemed eating and drinking and if all that and we know all that why not redeemed culture and redeemed agriculture and redeemed music and arts and science and play and writing and reading and redeemed exploration of the world all to the glory of god if the current universe declares the handy the glory of god in his handiwork how much more you know in a universe no longer under the curves you do you love the beauty of this earth i mean i do i love to to dive i love to snorkel for hours on end can't do a lot of that in oregon but you know it's just one of something like i thrilled to enjoy and you may love flowers and gardens and i think we all love forests and and the great uh lakes of the world all of that well if there's going to be a new earth and a new jerusalem which we're told there's going to be well why not a new mount everest why not a new lake victoria why not a new grand canyon in matthew 19 jesus said these are his words at the renewal of all things now all things in the greek means all things which is why all the greek experts translated all things um when the son of man sits on his glorious throne you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes see renewal is one of the many rewords in the bible there's redemption regeneration restoration reconciliation resurrection sometimes we miss those re words because the way that we you know pronounce it but re it means going back it doesn't mean creating something that's never been it means restoring something that's been lost and now it's in a better than ever porn in acts 3 21 peter said christ must remain in heaven until the time comes for god to restore everything as he promised long ago through his holy prophets again it's not he's his mission is not obliteration it's restoration so what does it mean that one day god will restore everything well again it means this biblical doctrine of the new earth and the great thing is that if we realize this we will no longer have to have bucket list we will no longer have to grab for everything we can grab in this world because you know you only go around once this is our only opportunity to really experience the wonders and joys and beauties of this world no it's not the past is yet to come so if you're disappointed because there were things you really would have liked to do that things that were on your bucket list and now you're realizing you're not going to be able to because your own uh health maybe your spouse's health um your financial situation whatever it is for whatever reasons you can't do some of the things you long to do the best is yet to come and and we do not pass our peaks in this life don't don't let the evil one fool you into thinking that you have passed your peak so i'm 66 years old now i go out and play tennis with my grandsons but you know what um i'm slowing down i mean i can't want to play tennis the way i used to and sometimes my mind tells me i can and that's when i get in trouble and hurt myself because i try to force my body to do something it can't do anymore but my point is i'd be depressed if i thought that i had passed my peak well here's the thing not only have i not passed my peak i have never seen my peak my peak will not come until the resurrection and i will never be less than at my peak and the same is true for all of us that's just a doctrine of scripture he's going to wipe away the suffering and and the results of the curse with the curse gone we will not experience the results of it the way that we do in this earth so when you think of heaven don't think of well there won't be any pain because we'll just be spirits without bodies and you don't have a body you can't have pain and we'll be floating around and it's like we think of heaven as the absence of the negative let's think of the promise of the new earth as the presence of the positive most importantly of course being with jesus most importantly worshiping him the king of kings and lord of the lords our savior our king worthy of all a worship but all the missed opportunities of this life that will be replaced by billions of better opportunities forever so um when you think about the promise of heaven think about the amazingly good news that god is as in store for us a redeemed physical world you know no no child wants to grow up to be a ghost so if if we give our children the impression that heaven is this ghostly existence where all we do is you know sing hymns forever and strum a harp which i guess a ghost really can't strum a heart but you know you get the idea and it's going to be boring no the greatest adventures await us in the world to come in letters to malcolm lewis said this i can now communicate to you the fields of my boyhead boyhood they are building estates today only imperfectly can i tell you about them by words perhaps the day is coming when i can take you for a walk through them so he suggests this continuity between this earth and the new earth um but i think in the last battle and i'll just give you a little bit of this because i'm starting to run out of time here uh jewel the unicorn mourns narnia's death calling it the only world i've ever known god put us here we met christ here he revealed himself so this is the only world we've ever known and in the last battle lewis says this the new narnia was a deeper country every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more what a picture of the new earth will it be different of course it'll be different but on the new earth we will say as lewis had it said of those in narnia the reason we love the old earth is that sometimes it looked a little like this and yusus by the way was puzzled because he said you know we saw narnia destroyed we saw the sun put out how can you say this is narnia and and then they say well yeah but it actually is because look at all the familiar places well ii peter 3 says the old earth will be destroyed and the same context promises the new earth which will never die so what do we find in the final two chapters of the bible a wrap up a return to the first two chapters but far more and far better in revelation 21 and 22 we see the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of god and the tree of life which by then as a forest of life growing on both sides of the river the new eden no longer any curse the redeemer has come and righteous humanity is now going to rule the new earth under king jesus for ever so the great news is if we know jesus that's where we're going to be and so uh let me finish where uh lewis finishes the chronicles of narnia uh and what a picture of what awaits us in the world to come for sure and by the way remember you say lewis is writing fiction but god is writing in revelation 21 and 22 and these other passages god is writing blood bought promises it is by the blood of jesus that these truths and these eternal realities are guaranteed but just just kind of luxurate in as i have as i was just rereading this this morning in a section called uh farewell to the shadowlands uh aslan gives the children shocking news that's really ultimately good news he says there was a real real railway accident remember that's how the book began and it seemed like there was an accident but you didn't know and then he says your father and mother and all of you are as you used to call it in the dead the term is over the holidays have become have begun the dream has ended this is the morning and louis says and as he spoke the great lion he no longer looked to them like a lion guess what he began to look like i think the savior jesus he no longer looked to them like a lion but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that i cannot write them and for us this is the end of all the stories and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after but for them it was only the beginning of the real story all their life in this world and all their adventures in narnia had only been the cover and the title page now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no one on earth has read which goes on forever in which every chapter is better than the one before i can't wait oh thank you uh so much randy for that uh wonderful presentation and and you've already i know sparked a lot of questions uh i know for myself you've kind of grounded me just even in thinking about uh what it means uh to think about heaven as this new earth so thank you so much and we're going to be uh getting into questions here in a moment uh we're going to give you a few those of you participating tonight a little bit more time sending your questions uh and uh we'll take some time there with randy to to answer some of those uh for those of you who may have been stirred already by what you've heard and you're sensing a longing to know jesus more deeply perhaps you're thinking you know i would love to be equipped to be more effective in my christian life to be able to thoughtfully and graciously share jesus with people in my workplace my home i'd love to be able to answer questions that i've thought about for years but never really had an answer to well i'd like to encourage you to consider the cs lewis fellows program it's a year-long discipleship program that's been going on for 20 years over 5000 men and women have participated so far and this program is now offered in 16 cities in the united states canada and great britain so i'd encourage you to consider this program and you can go to our website to look at the locations i know that our city directors in all of our locations be happy to talk to you about this program uh what i've discovered is many people have come to me and they've said joel i feel really competent and confident in my professional life i have the education the experience and i feel good about my professional life but when it comes to sharing and living out my faith in christ i feel like i only have a sunday school education well if you feel that way would like to get equipped i encourage you to consider the cs lewis fellows program i'd like to force just take a quick look at a video uh in which some of the fellows who've gone through the program share how this program has impacted their lives hi my name is abby narvaez i am a student at the c.s lewis fellows program in chicago for the 2019-2020 year i am a flight attendant i fly both domestic and international routes we are in the middle of copit19 a crisis that has literally brought the world to its knees as a result of this crisis people are asking some really hard questions questions such as where is god and why does god allow so much suffering these were questions that i was asking a year ago as a result of not being able to come up with any answers i felt very much alone and very much isolated in my faith it wasn't long after starting the program that i realized i was surrounded by people who were asking the very same questions through my studies and others in the program that were pouring into my life i began to gain an arsenal of information but more importantly i began to gain the confidence i needed to be able to answer these hard questions as a flight attendant i don't often have the luxury of time to be able to sit down and discuss these hard questions at best i may only have just a few minutes with a passenger or with a fellow flight attendant this program has given me the information and the knowledge needed to be able to tackle those questions in that very short amount of time but as i said earlier what is more importantly it has given me the confidence to know that i am speaking truth into people's lives especially during this covet 19 crisis i strongly recommend this program to anyone who is looking to deepen their faith and go to the next level whether you've been walking only two months or over 25 years with christ as i have hi my name name's alex ward i am a commissioned fellow and mentor with the cs lewis institute in belfast i am also a farmer's wife and a stay-at-home mum to five daughters the covid19 crisis has given everybody pause for thought it's also raised some really big life questions for a lot of people three years ago i found myself with two challenging teenagers who were asking questions that i felt really ill-equipped to answer and it created a restlessness in my faith my faith was really important to me and i was part of a fantastic active church and a wonderful bible study group but i felt that there was a real disconnect between my head knowledge and where my heart was at i was blessed to come across the cs lewis fellows programme and it has been nothing short of transformational to my faith since that time i have had the privilege and joy of god using me to lead help be part of leading my beloved sister to faith when she had been so very very far away from him and last year i was able to be part of her baptism it was wonderful so if you are listening to this and you're feeling like maybe your faith has become a little bit ordinary or maybe you're feeling a little bit dissatisfied with your spiritual journey look into the fellows programme find out how we can come alongside you in your journey and complement your church life the fellows program has totally enriched my church life and been a real blessing to my other brothers and sisters within my own church as well so i would really encourage you don't put it off have a look into it and i really look forward to meeting you hello my name is jeff russell i'm an ophthalmologist in dallas texas i became involved in the c.s lewis institute because my wife joined the program one day i picked up an article she was reading called margins in it c.s lewis said you cannot get second things by putting them first you can only get second things by putting first things first this precisely described my harried and complicated life and i was inspired by the holy spirit to pick up the phone and join the institute i can honestly say i have never been more enthusiastic and fervent about anything in my life the exploration of the monthly topics has transformed my life and hopefully has impacted those around me because of the cslos program i can now say that i know what it means to put god first in this time when coven 19 has caused all of us to have a reset i would encourage anyone desiring a deeper fuller and more loving relationship with their heavenly father to consider participating in this transformative program you will be blessed you

Channel: C.S. Lewis Institute

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Length: 45min 52sec (2752 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 09 2021