Pickle Heaven Press-James R. Johnson

something to help you laugh and think about life with Christ

Tag: John 14:6

how do we know there is a heaven? — January 15, 2025

how do we know there is a heaven?

/pickleheavenpress

I am sometimes asked about the crazy name of my blog, pickleheavenpress!   So what is pickle heaven!  

It is a figment of my imagination!  I was once a poor college student with a lovely wife and 2 darling preschoolers.  Money was tight, but we made it a once-a-week treat to go for some fast food.

The kids would ask, “Daddy, can we go to McDonald’s?”  I would tease them and say, “Well I was thinking I might like to go to that new place called Pickle Heaven.”  Of course it didn’t exist, but they didn’t know that. 

They whined.  They didn’t want a pickle!  “OK McDonald’s it is then.”  Each week for nearly a year, I would suggest Pickle Heaven, but I was always out voted. Then one day I asked, “Where do you all want to eat tonight?”  My 4-year replied, “Daddy, maybe we should try Pickle Heaven.”  Oops. 

My sweet, naïve, children trusted me and assumed that a restaurant called Pickle Heaven actually existed. But what about the heaven we cherish? 

Could it also be a figment of our collective imagination? 

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly in outer space in 1961.  When he arrived, he looked around the heavens for God.  He didn’t see Him, so he declared, ‘Boga Nyet!’, which translates, ‘There is no God!’

And yet, I certainly believe heaven exists and here’s why. 

The Scripture speaks of it

Scripture is our primary and utterly reliable source of truthful information.  It clearly affirms the existence of heaven.  There is the OT assertion in Psalm 23

 “And I will dwell I the house of the Lord forever.”  And there is the NT corroboration where heaven in mentioned 228 times.  Jesus promised the thief on the cross that the two of them would be together in Paradise that very day they died (Luke 23:43).  If heaven is a piece of fiction, then Jesus misled us.

Belief in heaven is a universal phenomenon

The university of Oxford sanctioned a study involving 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries that represented a diverse range of cultures. Their goal was to find if concepts such as God and an afterlife are taught generation to generation or are they imprinted at birth.  The studies found that belief in an afterlife is a universal and innate part of being a human being.  Throughout time, in every culture and place, people have possessed a belief in the afterlife.   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm

This is no surprise!  Solomon described this phenomenon in Ecclesiastes 3:11 saying, “He (God) has set eternity in the hearts of men.”

There have been eyewitnesses to heaven

As a hospice chaplain I have been privileged to hear stories and sometimes even witness the transition of people into the afterlife.  Just recently one of my patients, an elderly Christian woman, was unconscious for a couple of days.  Then she unexpectedly sat up and fixed her gaze on something beyond the walls.  She reached out her hand and said, “Jesus” and then soon passed.  

Just recently my friend lost his daughter to a terminal disease.   According to him, her very last thrill-filled words were, Wow! Wow! Wow! 

Most hospice workers have witnessed similar stories.  

But where is heaven?  We don’t know.  Author Randy Alcorn says, “It’s referred to as “up” in location in the Bible (Luke 9:51) It could be a place in the universe beyond the earth or it may exist entirely outside of our space-time continuum.  (In Light of Eternity, pg. 28)

God hasn’t revealed the exact address of heaven, maybe to avoid the scads of folks who would try to locate it and barge their way in.  Yet, we have proof that there is a heaven, and that Jesus is the way to get there. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” John 14:6.

I sure hope to see you there!

A PRAYER: Lord, thank You for making room for me and all those I love.

This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

Scripture passages are from the NIV

taxi — March 22, 2023

taxi

/pickleheavenpress

In the beginning – there was just the taxi until Uber and Lyft came along.   The taxi took its name from an invention by Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891.  He called his device a taximeter and it was designed to measure and record the distance traveled.

In my youth, I aspired to be a taxi driver.  I got my license and a job and was ready to go.  I assumed I would be paid by the hour, so I was surprised to find that I had to lease the cab each day, and pay a per mile fee, and cover tolls and airport fees and then purchase the gasoline from the overpriced company pump. 

On Monday and Tuesday, I took home about $20 each day.  Wednesday, I barely broke even.  Thursday, I owed the company money after working a 12-hour shift.  Friday, I quit!  I am not the brightest, but I believe a person is supposed to earn money when they work. 

But my week was not a total waste.  The people I met were amazing.  I transported a brainy nuclear physicist with a Ph.D. to his workplace.  Then there was the lady who would not get out of my cab until she got me to trust Jesus (even though I was already saved). 

I picked up a fare at 6 a.m. – a man in an expensive business suit.  He was headed to a downtown office tower, but not until I dropped him off at a downtown bar where he sipped his liquid courage.  And then there was the prostitute who wanted to trade her services for the ride.  No deal!  

I transported about 40 surprisingly different people in those four days – and yet they all had one thing in common.  They all needed a ride.  The rich, the poor, the pious and the reprobate.  Some were highly educated, others just barely. Men and women of every color, speaking multiple tongues and they all needed me to give them a ride. 

That so much reminds me of the Gospel. 

Wasn’t it Paul who wrote, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  –  Romans 10:9   Our desired destination is to be with the saved in heaven.

To get there we need to hitch a ride with Jesus.  His words are more obvious than a yellow cab.  He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  – John 14:6

To “confess,” is to agree with God concerning the person and the work of Jesus and to take your stand there.  To “believe in your heart” is to fully embrace the jarring truth that Jesus was crucified, died, was buried and then rose again.   

And who is welcome to come aboard?  Any and everyone according to Paul.  Later in that Romans passage he wrote, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  – Romans 10:13.   The door is open to all – the physicist, the moral soulwinner, the imbibing businessman, the prostitute and even you and me.  

We enter as broken sinners and emerge as new people with powerful spiritual potential.  But the best part about this deal is that Jesus pays the fare. 

Revelation 1:5 says, He “has set us free from our sins at the cost of his own blood.”   “At the cost of His own blood!”  Jesus shed His blood on a cross so that we would not have to.

So, keep your cash, put away that debit card, and don’t even try to barter or trade your services for His gift.  Because Jesus paid it all!  Confess Him as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you too will be saved.

A PRAYER: Lord this is a very old message, but it blows like a fresh breeze on my soul every time I hear it. 

This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you

Scripture references are from the NETBible ®

*Taxi Picture by Peter Milosevic from Wikipedia.com