I’ve been thinking about heaven a lot lately. Maybe it’s because that was one of the Bible lessons during VBS which VA campus just finished up last week. It’s always been fun to think about what heaven would be like. We do get a glimpse of what it looks like in Revelation, but a lot is left to the imagination. Jesus said that he would be preparing a room for us in heaven. I wonder sometimes what my room would look like. What would be in it? Would all our favorite things be there? I shared this with the VBS kids, but I hope I have a bowling alley in my room. Since we’ll be perfect in heaven, I would be averaging 300. I think that would be great!
Maybe I’ve been thinking about heaven lately because of the recently discovered earth 2.0 AKA Kepler-452b. It is apparently very similar to earth. It orbits around a G-2 star like our sun. Its orbit is a little longer than ours though at 385 days. Its distance from the sun is similar to earth. It is bigger than earth and it has more land than it does water. It is also older than the earth. When I read about this, immediately I said to my wife “What if this is the ‘new’ earth that God had in mind when he told us that there would be a new heaven and a new earth?” And my wife looked at me and sarcastically said “Yeah, and we were able to discover it.” She found it hard to believe that we could discover something like that since God is God and we’re only human. But I said to her “Yes, we discovered it but its 1,400 light years away so it’s impossible for us to reach it anyways.” This is just my thought of course. There is no validity to what I said. However, how funny would it be IF it was true? God works outside of time so he could have already created this “new” earth while he created everything else, and it would still be “new” to us.
We had a pastoral staff retreat this past Monday and Tuesday and we were going through the book of Acts together. In Acts 14:22, we see Paul and Barnabas encouraging and strengthening the disciples. They say this “We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” I asked myself why do we have to go through hardships? And I was reminded that it’s because this land here is not our home. We are only immigrants while we’re living here on earth. Our citizenship is in heaven. Many of us come from immigrant families and know what a challenge that is compared to friends of ours whose parents were born here in the USA. We go through hard times here because our parents are citizens of South Korea. It’s always difficult to live in a land that is not your own.
Maybe that’s really why I think of heaven. While here on earth, we will endure lots of hardships, but we all know that heaven is a perfect place. It has no disease. No tears. No pain. What an awesome place! As I read that verse in Acts, it really comforted me and reminded me that this is not my home. I should expect lots of hardship living in a foreign land. No one knows exactly what heaven will be like and we will have to wait to find out, but we do know it’s going to be a wonderful place.
Whenever you are going through hardship here on earth, just think about heaven. Think about spending all of eternity in a perfect place just worshiping God all day long. Remember that we are only immigrants here on earth while we wait for our time to go back home.

From Pastor Eugene’s Heart 
August 23, 2015

I remember reading a leadership/management book or article somewhere to keep a precise hourly record of your daily schedule for a week.  I actually never took that challenge to heart but I did a brief exercise on my own this week and recalled my schedule each day of this week to write down everything I did and how long I did it for.  Among a few other surprises, what I was most surprised about was the percentage of time I spent in literal “quiet time” with the Lord – this did not include any pastoral day-to-day job requirements, church events, or Christian book reading.  I defined “quiet time” as set aside time in communication (prayer) with God, nothing in front of me except for a bible, journal and a pen.  Out of a week that consists of 168 hours only 4% of my time (roughly an hour/day) was spent in personal, intimate, alone, quiet time with God.  In comparison, 8% of that week was spent watching tv/movies, and over 10% spent with friends hanging out – over DOUBLE the amount that I spent with the Lord.  I know many of us reading this have heard of statistics and comparisons like this before, but taking personal inventory of where my time was spent was eye opening for me.  If the saying “time is money” is true of how we view the 24 hours of our day, I was only giving the Lord only 4 cents of my dollar… A WEEK. Furthermore, if we apply time spent with the Lord to the traditional 10% of tithing, we should be spending 16.8 hours a week (10% of 168 hours in a week), about 2 hours and 24 minutes per day with the Lord.  But I’m busy… right?  We’re all busy with daily essentials with work, family, and friends, aren’t we?
In Luke 5, Luke’s account of the calling of the first disciples and healing of the man with leprosy, verse 16 subtly mentions that in the midst of all the healing and teaching that Jesus did, “he often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”  Now scripture isn’t clear on why he withdrew, but one thing is very clear, because of busy-ness, Jesus withdrew to pray often.  His prayer was not the time spent in our cars while driving to work or while cooking a meal or waiting for our children as they finish sports, Kumon, or violin lessons.  Jesus’ prayer times were withdrawn from the craziness of life in “lonely” or “deserted” (void of people!) places.  How are you all doing with that?  How is your time spent with Jesus?  In what ways have you compromised or made excuses to avoid spending time with the Lord?  Martin Luther, responsible for the Reformation, is often quoted saying “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”  He deeply understood the value of close connection and communication with the Lord.  Friends, let’s get our priorities straight.  Let’s commit to withdraw from the day-to-day busyness and give the King, who gave His all for us, the most precious commodity in our lives, our time.

From Pastor Keeyoung’s Heart
August 16, 2015