Cyber-Discipleship

This is from my book, “For Such a Time as This: The Darkness Cometh” available from Friesen Press. It is also available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

One of the lessons we studied in my Christian Education class was on spiritual transformation. The lesson spoke about how we as Christians need to be transformed from the people we are into the image of Christ. In the lesson, the author used the analogy of a butterfly.  He spoke about how the caterpillar would crawl up the tree and create the cocoon.  When he emerged, he was a beautiful butterfly.  “The idea,” my class teacher, Jerry, eloquently put it,”is that the caterpillar had the DNA of a butterfly in him all along, but he had to go through that transformation or morphing stage in order to become all he was created to be.”

I remember, over 10 years ago, I used the same analogy to illustrate a different truth.  In the mid 90’s, I was doing a study on Heaven. I had just finished listening to John McArthur doing a study on heaven on his Grace to You radio program. Next, Woodrow Kroll of Back to the Bible started a study on Heaven.  I’d also purchased John McArthur’s book, the Glory of Heaven, and later, Joni Eareckson Tada’s, Heaven: Your Real Home.  From that came the sermon I preached at the sites where I ministered.  Since this was pre-seminary, it didn’t have a title, but it went something like this:

Colossians 3:1-2 say, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Of all the verses I read on Heaven, those two verses are the ones that stayed with me.  A more accurate translation would be “Since you were raised with Christ…” This is not our home.  We are, as they used to say, pilgrims passing through a barren land.  Hebrews 11:13-16 say, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them,^[c] embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.”

{One of the places I ministered to was a rehabilitation center.  I would ask, “How many of you when you came here brought your furniture, your dishes, and all your clothes? When no one would raise their hand, I would ask why not?  It’s because when you came here, none of you intended to stay. Therefore, you didn’t bring the things that would make you comfortable here.  Likewise, as Christians we are not to be comfortable in this world. Just as many of you are looking forward to going home, we are to be concentrating on and looking forward to going to our heavenly home.}

2 Peter 3:10:13 tells us “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.^{[c] 11}Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,¹² looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? ¹³ Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Since we are not of this world and but in it, we should be more concerned about heaven than earth.  We are ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20) of Heaven.  We speak for Christ. We should live like Christ.  We should influence this world and not let this world influence us.

The time is coming when we will be released to go home.  Either the Lord will call or the Death Angel, but we will go home.  Therefore, let us set our minds on that place.  What will that place be like?  It will be a place where we will have new bodies, new minds, no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears, no more sorrows, no more good-byes, no more death, for the old things have passed away.  Just as Jesus said the old heaven and earth passed away and there was found no place for them, so will all the bad things of this world.

With our new bodies, we will be able to move at the speed of light.  We will be able to walk the solid objects. We will be able to defy gravity. I know this may all sound like science fiction, but Jesus was able to do all these things with His glorified body.  Read Luke 24. We will be able to fall from great heights and not get hurt.  We will be able to swim in the ocean and not drown. Why? We can do this because there is no more death.

Right now, we are made of dust; therefore, we are subject to the laws of physics. But soon, that will change.  Take the caterpillar, for example.  As a caterpillar, it is a creature of the dust.  But when it crawls into a cocoon, it essentially dies and is reborn a butterfly.  Because it is now a creature of the heavens, it can defy the laws of gravity.  Likewise, we are creatures of the dust.  We are of the offspring of Adam.  But when we die in Christ, we are transformed into creatures of Heaven.  2 Cor. 5:17 says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation…” We are transformed inwardly and outwardly.  Inward transformation is called sanctification.  The outward transformation we are looking forward to is called glorification.

1 Corinthians 15:20-22: “²⁰ But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” Right now we in the image of the man of dust (Adam), but soon we will bear the image of the Man of Heaven (1 John 3:2).  Now we are subject to the laws of the earth, but soon the laws of the earth will be subject to us.