Party in Heaven

Today was quite a day.

Teen service was special to me... I made a new committment to Christ and this time, THIS TIME, for the last time, I'm serious. No more messing around and I've said this before but I have NO CHOICE, I HAVE to do this.

We had an alter call and I went up... I just need.. to be closer to Christ.. Gretchen said something that really struck me, almost brought me to tears. It brought HER to tears, thats for sure... but she said, she doesn't want to think of heaven as being boring same ol same ol worshipping God for eternity... she thinks of it as being up there and having hte best time ever, playing music, singing, just being there and being happy, and she said she has so many friends that she knows are going to hell when they die unless something changes, and as harsh as it sounds, its true.. and she said she wants so badly for them to join in her in heaven, just to be together with everyone, singing, dancing...

You know, she was so right in saying that... I want so badly for all my friends to be together in heaven, and I bet it'll be something like it was in that music store, sitting around singing worship songs with people we've never even met... but ya know, the current state of things, I know some of my friends simply would not go to heaven if they died right now, along with myself, I sure wouldn't be going to heaven... I talk the talk but I don't walk the walk and I find that's what most of us do and that doesn't make us bad people, it just means we have to work on it... And some people can't admit that they have a problem, but they need to just accept that nobody is perfect and as soon as we can admit that what we are doing is wrong, the sooner we can fix it.

But how much time do we have?

I was sitting in the main service, the thoughts of what Gretchen said still swimming through my mind...

"Marlon, you ok?" Pastor Mark said, stopping in mid-sentence of his sermon.

An elderly man passed out in his seat. His defibulator didn't kick in. Someone checked his pulse, then a few more guys rushed in and they carried him out and layed him on the floor in the foyer.

Pastor Mark led us in a prayer for him... then got back to the sermon because he didn't want anbody to have to witness a death.

The man was ok, his defibulator kicked in and he came back.

Yes, he was an old man... but one minute he was sitting there, listening to the sermon, and the next, his life is hanging in the balance.

Even though he had a heart condition and most of us are in tip top shape, the same thing could happen to ANYONE at ANY MOMENT.

One minute I could be driving down the road, singing along to some Lost Prophets and playing air drums on my steering wheel, and the next, some drunken fool could swerve out from behind a car and nail me head on. It could all be over in that instant. I could have been heading to church... to a friends house... home from a friends house... doesn't matter. And its foolish to believe that I'm invincible, so I won't believe that. I'm NOT.

Each second after this very moment is a precious gift not to be wasted. There is no telling when your time is, or when its the time of someone close to you.

Think about your closest friends... where are they going when they die? Are they into things they shouldn't be into, that are taking them away from a clean walk with Christ? What are you doing to hold them accountable and to remind them that they HAVE to straighten up?

Only thing you can do is pray... just pray that they take heed to the words you've spoken to them, that they drop the bad things and return to being that so-wonderful person that you once thought the world of and looked up to as a role model.

Just pray... and then let go... and let God.