Greg Laurie
speaker
159 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Greg Laurie’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And that's the same word that Jesus used when he hung on the cross and the thief said, or probably guilty of a worse crime than stealing, but the criminal next to him said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Same word. So Paul went there and he came back.
and and then after that he said i have a desire to depart and be with christ which is far better so i think ever since that moment in his life he had a homesickness for heaven so coming back to my son i can't explain it but i would say this when he went there i feel like a part of me went there too and your first inclination is communication and i understand why people
are so desperate to communicate with their loved ones. But according to scripture, we can't communicate with them and they can't communicate with us. David lost his son. He said, I will go to him, but he won't come to me. So I think that that is something that's futile. But after my son died, I had his phone number with a recording still attached to it that he had made.
And I would call it over and over and over. Just to hear his voice.
So there's a longing for communication. And so it really just kind of opened up something in my heart. where I thought, wow, okay, I'm 72 now. How much longer am I gonna live? I don't know, but I'm not afraid to die because I know that I too will go into God's presence. In the book of Luke, there's a story of a man who died.
He's called a beggar, and he went into Abraham's bosom, coming back to Abraham, and he was carried by the angels. So I believe when my son left this world for the next world, and that tragic automobile accident. that he was taken by angels into God's presence. And I believe that I will go there too.
Well, it's just, it's just faith. You know, it's faith. I mean, how can I explain it? It's faith that's in my heart, but the Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen. I believe this firmly. Now, I have indications of why my faith is worth having because I've seen the change that's happened in my life over the years.
I've seen the change that's happened in other lives. So that's sort of like a down payment on greater things to come. God said, listen, you follow me and here's what I'll do for you. I'll forgive you of your sin. I'll give you a peace that passes human understanding. I'll give you meaning and purpose in your life. I will guide your steps. Okay, God made a lot of promises.
I've put those promises to the test, including the worst thing of all, to lose a child. And I've seen how God came through for me. And, you know, and so, because if he didn't come through for me after my son died, I would have given up preaching for sure. Why carry on? But he did come through for me. He came through for me because I've seen what's happened to other people.
I've seen how their marriages have unraveled. I've seen how they've turned to drugs and alcohol. I've seen how they become bitter, angry people. And that didn't happen to me. And that's not because I'm some virtuous person. That's because I believe the promises of God and I lean into them and I found them to be true. And I continue to find them to be true.
And there's no human explanation for getting through something as awful as that apart from faith. Faith is, you know, you say these things, but when you have to walk across the bridge for real, it's different. It's not theory now. This is like in Job after all of his suffering.
Yeah, he said, I heard this with my ears, but now I've seen it for myself. So it's one thing when you believe something, but then you put it to the test and you find it's absolutely true. Therefore, if all of these things that have been done in my life up to this point have been true, which they have been, therefore, I accept God's promise of the afterlife. And I accept what God says about heaven.
And there'll be no more pain and no more suffering and questions will be answered. And so I think, so I get little glimpses of heaven and the great moments of life, which I appreciate. And I think you tend to treasure those things more because it seems like the great moments of life are the in-between moments that we take for granted.
You know, we're always waiting for the big event, Christmas or this or that or whatever.
this trip but a lot of times it's the little things in between you treasure those and but then i know i'm going to have new memories to create with him in the future and i'll be in god's presence and and so that and i want to tell other people that because ultimately when everything's said and done what's more important than the afterlife and what's more important than where we spend it and according to the bible i believe there's a literal heaven a literal hell
And I believe we choose in this life where we will spend the afterlife. And the reason I'm going to go to heaven is not because I've lived a good life, because I've failed in many ways, but because Christ laid his life down for me on the cross coming back to Abraham. I mean, what a picture. The son was willing to go and be sacrificed by the father. He knew what was going on.
Hey, Dad, where's the sacrifice? My son, God will provide for himself a sacrifice. But Isaac made that sacrifice too. The son, Jesus, made that sacrifice for us because he knew there was no other way that we could reach God, no other way we could satisfy the righteous demands of God. So heaven isn't for good people, as it's often said. Heaven is for forgiven people. That's how I see it.
Thank you for explaining the Pinocchio story to me.
Thank you.
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