A Heaven With God

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the world. (Matt. 25:34)

What if instead of ‘You blessed ones, Come,’ He had said rather, ‘You blessed ones, Go, to a kingdom I have provided for you. Angels, conduct from My presence this ransomed people I have redeemed. Furnish them with crowns and thrones in that distant celestial city; and since I am to be no longer with them, be you to them a holy brotherhood — make them partakers of your joys!’

How would every face droop in sadness! Heaven would have a blight passed over it. Its ransomed worshipers would exclaim, ‘Our thrones are denuded of their glory — our crowns of their luster, O Savior, without You!’

But it is not so. His very opening declaration dispels their dread. ‘Come!’ Wherever your heaven is, it is to be a heaven with me: we are to share our crowns and thrones together. ‘Him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My throne’ (Rev. 3:21). ‘Enter you into the joy of your Lord’ (Matt. 25:23).”

~John MacDuff, "The Final Gathering of the Flock"
Of First Importance

Christ the Manifestation of the Father

“We have only to track the divine footsteps of the Redeemer on earth, there to behold ‘as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.’ What do we see?

A Being, indeed, of infinite holiness—unsparing and uncompromising in His rebuke of iniquity, sternly denouncing sin in all its forms, driving with a scourge the sacrilegious traffickers from His Father’s house, proclaiming the impending and certain doom awaiting incorrigible sinners, the workers of iniquity; even predicting by discourse and parable the dreadful verities of a judgment-day, and pronouncing everlasting doom on the impenitent and unbelieving; on all traitors to their trust, on all neglectors and squanderers of committed talents; thus repeating, in words not to be misunderstood, the very truth which fell on the ears of Moses in his Rock-cleft, as the sublime voice and vision were dying away—’And that will by no means clear the guilty.’

But yet, in combination with this, we are called to contemplate one of infinite purity, beneficence, tenderness; whose delight was to feed the hungry, to heal the diseased, to help the helpless, to comfort the bereaved; feeling for them; weeping for them-—in His parables, giving a welcome to the Prodigal; in His daily communion, never scorning a suppliant’s request, or a penitent’s tears; listening, even in His expiring agonies, to a cry for mercy from a felon at His side; accepting the widow’s mite; making generous allowance for the lack of watchfulness at His own greatest crisis-hour on the part of trusted disciples; pardoning, with the tenderest of rebukes, the aggravated sin of a faithless follower; the prayer, trembling on His dying lips, of forgiveness for His murderers.

Reader! take in, at a glance, this wide comprehensive view of the Savior’s life and ministry, and in it you have a picture and impersonation of the character of God. ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.’ ‘From henceforth,’ says Christ, pointing to Himself, ‘You know the Father, and have seen Him.’”

~John MacDuff, Clefts of the Rock
Of First Importance