Read pages from Heaven on Earth

At Amazon, you can now read the opening pages of my book HEAVEN ON EARTH. Many extra pages can be read also by selecting the "Surprise Me" icon. Amazon and Barnes & Noble are offering a 48% discount off retail.

Deeper Discount

Amazon is now offering Heaven on Earth at a whopping 45% discount on all pre-orders.

TRAGEDY IN NEW TOWN: AN OPPORTUNITY TO MINISTER

The tragedy at New Town, CT is a ministry opportunity for the church to minister to its extended community. Only the church can address the issues of life and death from a christian perspective. 

You might consider opening the doors of your church tomorrow or Sunday evening for a community meeting where people can voice their fears and concerns and express their heart-felt emotions. Then take a few minutes to teach them what the Bible says about the issue. 

What to teach:

1. We were created from earth, for the earth, and to rule over the earth eternally.

2. Evil entered this realm and death resulted.

3. The world is a chaotic and potentially dangerous place.

4. Jesus himself experienced a violent death.

5. God raised Jesus from the grave, breaking death's power.

6. All who die in Christ will likewise be raised and God's kingdom established on earth. This is the believer's hope.

7. Until then evil continues to stalk earth and seeks to motivate people to kill and live destructively. Hence, the massacre.

 

8. The church is called to minister to those who fear death and to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom, calling people to Christ.

* Note:  Talk about heaven is not especially helpful, since it carries the idea that salvation is nothing more than the soul's release from the body--a concept more in line with Greek philosophy than the Bible. This ultimately, if not immediately, leads to theological confusion rather than to clarity.

In light of the tragedy, many in your community will be offering advice. Won't you stand up and speak on behalf of God?

Healing and the Kingdom

God provided OT believers with many benefits, including divine health and healing when needed. Take Moses, for example, who “was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished” (Deuteronomy 34:7). This means, he didn’t need eyeglasses or Viagra. He had the strength of a young man!

To ancient Israel God promises, “I will take sickness away from the midst of you” (Exodus 23:26). Did he keep his promise? Ask Miriam how her leprosy was healed (Numbers 21:1-15); or Hannah how her barrenness was reversed (1 Samuel 1:9-20); or the two widows how their sons were raised from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:18-37); or Naaman how the miracle waters cured his leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-14); or the dead man how his limp body came back to life when it touched Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:21); or King Hezekiah how he was given fifteen more years of life after being at death’s door (2 Chronicles 32:24-26); or the multitudes how they were cured of venomous snake bites when they glanced up at a pole (Numbers 21:4-9).

The Psalmist writes:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
     forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases (Psalm 103:2-3).

The Psalmist says that both forgiveness and healing are part of the benefit package for OT saints. Don't you wish we still lived under the old covenant??!!

[I devote an entire chapter to healing as a kingdom blessing in HEAVEN ON EARTH. It is a very provocative chapter! Pre-order today at Amazon at a 42% discount]

"WE'VE A STORY TO TELL TO THE NATIONS!"

The Church has a story to tell. It begins with creation, includes the call for humans to rule the earth under God, their yielding to another voice, which subverts their rule, God's reclamation of the world through a New Man who faithfully obeys the true Voice, is murdered and raised from the dead to form a new humanity that pledges allegiance to God and take s his message to the world. Unfortunately, God's people in America often and mistakenly seek to find their identity in the American story rather in God's story. God's story is older and bigger than the American story. It's timeline reaches back to the Garden of Eden and extends forward to God's kingdom on earth. Therefore, which story is more important? That's the one we must proclaim!

Peter Davids Review Endorsement of HEAVEN ON EARTH

Alan Streett has written a very readable theology of the kingdom of God. But it is more than a theology, for it is the grand narrative of God's relationship to the world and humanity told in a fascinating manner without any mincing of words when it comes to bringing out its practical implications. I can only hope that as many as can get their hands on it will indeed "Take up and read." At the end of the work one wants to stand and sing the "Hallelujah Chorus." Peter Davids, Ph.D. Visiting Professor of Christianity Houston Baptist University

Far-sighted Christians Wanted

Great quote from A. W. Tozer: "There is a glorious catholicity of the saints, a mystic brotherhood of the farsighted, who have long been straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the King in His beauty in the land that is very far off. With great joy and deep humility I claim membership in that brotherhood. This is the oldest and largest church in the world; it is the church of the Cross-smitten, of the God-enamoured. "So as the years go on, I am coming to care less and less about any man's denominational ties. Let a man have a faraway look in his eyes, let him bow his head and whisper the ever-blessed name of Jesus, and he is my brother, whatever his name may be. And whether he will admit it or not. If by some bit of unfortunate education he may believe his church to be the only one, and consign me to perdition because I am not in it, I will still own him a member of the family of God if I find in his life the marks of the Cross and in his eyes the long look that reveals the man of faith."

Cover for SUBVERSIVE MEALS