Contents:

Gazing Into Heaven – Acts | Leadership Development International

These stories are sacred like the temple and I am so grateful they have been shared. I really enjoy reading near death experiences, call me weird, but I find people's views interesting on the subject. I also love history, so put the two together and I am set! There was such a variety of near death experiences, from Men, Women, and Children.

From meeting loved ones who had passed, to meeting Christ. This read was Spiritual and brought me closer to my Heavenly Father. Even though all the experiences were had by different people, there were so many similarities when you look at all of them. Some people came back for only a short period of time to say goodbye and tell their experience, then an hour or two later they would leave this life for the glory of Heaven.

One man had two years to get his life in order and then he would be taken back home. Two of the stories that stuck out to me both dealt with seeing the Prophet Joseph Smith in a room, with a long table and him walking back and forth being very busy with his work.

This came from two very different people, one happened to be a little girl. I know in my family there have been some near death experiences, which I find amazing! I can certainly wait to die, but what joy I will have when I get to the other side and get to have my own experience in pure Love.

This book is very intriguing and has given me much to ponder about. I really loved the stories included within its pages.

Recent Articles

I find it interesting that all near-death experiences have up to 10 common traints: So why read a book like this? To learn To not fear To prepare To understand. After reading this book you will want to live a better life and you will strive harder to fulfill the mission you were sent here to earth to fulfill and you will feel more peace about those who have gone on before.

My Journey to Heaven.

Gaze Into Heaven: Near-Death Experiences in Early Church History

Visions from Beyond the Veil. Angels Watching Over You. I Knew Their Hearts.

Gazing Into Heaven – Acts 1:8-11?
Amys Redemption.
A Sicilian in East Harlem?
Gaze Into Heaven.
Good News for a Change!
See a Problem?.

To Heaven and Back. Glimpses Beyond Death's Door. Top , Wendy C. Making Sense of Suffering. Order now and we'll deliver when available. Temporarily out of stock. Enjoy eBooks and audiobooks on your smartphone or tablet with our free app , Deseret Bookshelf.

First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi

One of the more important principles of the Kingdom is that by using what we are given now, we are promised even more. So what was really so wrong with gazing up into heaven that glorious day when Jesus was received up into the cloud? The answer to that question lies in what held their attention at the moment. Jesus had made it abundantly clear in Luke He had closed the story in telling them to go and wait for the promise in Jerusalem. Then, in Acts 1, we read a bit more of the same occasion. Here, He tells them that they would soon be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

But they did not truly understand what God wanted to do in them and through them. Their first reaction was not unlike the thinking of their fellow Judeans:. There was no thought toward the command to preach repentance or remission of sins.

There was no urgency regarding carrying the gospel message to the ends of the earth. And there was no obvious commitment on their part concerning becoming empowered by the promise of the Father for His purpose. There was only the feeble and selfish hope that Jesus would recreate Israel as a new world power and cast out the Roman oppressors. In other words, they simply did not get what Jesus was trying to say. His answer to their misdirected question was gentle, yet firm. It was not for them to understand the times or the seasons which God had in His own hand. Instead of simply going to Jerusalem and preparing themselves to be given the necessary power to participate with God in His plan, they were focused on some kind of political and temporary fix for their fallen nation.

Some things will never be understood by Christian leaders.

Resource Library

I Knew Their Hearts. You shall open blind eyes, cleanse foul hearts, break men's fetters, and save men's souls. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. I also love history, so put the two together and I am set! It has to do with apostles.

Sometimes, we are instructed to participate here and now with the present plan, rather than expend energy in trying to figure out the next best thing that God should do. By substituting the latter for the former, we fall victim to missing the will of God in our lives and ministries right now. And so Jesus then tried to make their first priority abundantly clear: But so also is the undeniable necessity of being empowered to move with God in the fulfillment of His will. And so with this simple exhortation to them, Jesus was lifted up from the earth and disappeared into the heavens.

He had appeared twice unto them in Jerusalem, but it was some days before they once again met Him on the shores of Galilee. In that time, they had revealed their doubts and returned to fishing, something that they felt secure in, rather than calling on their Lord to give them the next instructions regarding their responsibility. This encounter with Jesus in John 21 was a scene of both comfort and gentle rebuke: It is no wonder then that Jesus assured them that He would be forever with them, even until the end of the world Matthew The temptation here for leaders, therefore, is in relaxing in the past comfort of His manifested presence, and thereby ignoring an even greater and more effectual presence that is to come.

The disciples could not have imagined how powerful the infilling of the Holy Ghost would be! While it was great to share the fish and the bread and the fire with Him at the lakeside, it would be so much greater to be filled with His presence in Jerusalem. Losing one level of relationship with God may seem daunting to most Christians, but leaders recognize that it is part of growing into the next level. And standing and gazing up into heaven would not bring this new level to reality. While leaders will certainly enjoy the spectacular and miraculous presence of the Lord in their lives and in their work for the Kingdom, they should never become fixated on any one moment longer than they should.

To do so means to delay their moving forward in their mission. There is no doubt concerning the glory of watching the risen Lord ascend into heaven. Nothing could have compared to the magnificence of that singular event; at least nothing up to that point in time. And that is something that leadership must recognize: Leaders, therefore, should learn to focus on the mandate given, rather than on the glory of the past or present. To put it simply, we should never spend too much time reveling in what He has already done and thereby miss what He presently desires to do.

Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

They were sincere in what they were doing, no doubt. But they still missed the point. While sincerity is a key element in the character of a godly leader, it should not be misconstrued. Leaders, like others, can be sincerely wrong! The story of Jesus relating the parable of the sower and his seed is told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Most Christian leaders will know and understand the parable quite well.

After all, it speaks of the Word of God producing eternal results once it finds its way to good ground. It warns as well of the uselessness of trying to see the seed grow on three other kinds of ground that simply have no potential for production. But in the accounts given by Mark and Luke there is a principle that emerges that should just as well be clearly understood by church leadership.

Near-Death Experiences in Early Church History

Mark tells us in chapter 4 that the crowd to whom Jesus gave His short sermon on the sower and his seed was a formidable one. There were so many people gathered to hear Jesus that He was moved into a boat and put a short distance from the shore in order to maintain eye contact with His audience.

Whether it was hundreds or thousands, we cannot tell. But apparently it was indeed a large crowd. We should notice nonetheless that after the conclusion of this very brief address by the Master, only His disciples remained behind with Him after the great crowd had dispersed. And it was this small group of His followers that begged the question: In other words, such a parable was given to separate those that really wanted to know from those that took only a casual glance at what Jesus had to say.

And then He went on to fully explain the meaning of the parable. But what followed after that is equally important. Leaders must be diligent to listen carefully to what they hear and filter the lies from the truth. They should be likewise meticulous in really hearing what God has to say to them.

This, in fact, is the principle of the Kingdom that begins to define leadership and set it apart from the rest of the followers of Jesus. How leaders apply what God has imparted to them is just as important as gaining the information to begin with. Do we really see what God is trying to say and do?

Gaze Into Heaven.
.
Gryphon Highlord.

Do we insist on a clear understanding of His principles and their application in our ministries? If not, we may become satisfied with the presence of Jesus in our midst, but compromised in the comprehension of His true message to us.