HOW DO YOU GET TO HEAVEN? Sermon_Fodder.com

The preacher was doing is weekly "children's message" with the children gathered around him down front. He was talking to the youngsters on their level about being good and going to heaven. At the end of his talk, he asked, "Where do you want to go?"
"Heaven!" one of the girls cried out enthusiastically.
"And what do you have to be to get there?" the preacher asked thoughtfully.
"Dead!" yelled one of the boys.

A minister in Florida lamented that it was difficult to get his message across to his congregation: "It's so beautiful here in the winter," he said, "that heaven doesn't interest them."
"And it's so hot here in the summer that hell doesn't scare them."

A MAN WOULD BE A FOOL true story sent in by Nancy Stingel to Teresa’s Jokers
At the Prayer Meeting an ELDERLY gentleman was sitting next to me, and after we'd been
introduced, but before the meeting started, he leaned over & said "ever notice how many women attend these things?"
I acknowledged that yes, there were more women than men.
A few minutes later, he leaned over again & said "A man would be a FOOL not to try to get into Heaven!"

A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy who's dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket and jeans. Saint Peter addresses him, "Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you into the Kingdom of Heaven?"
The guy replies, "I'm Joe Cohen, taxi driver, from New York."
Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the taxi driver, "Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Now it's the minister's turn. He stands erect and booms out, "I am the Right Reverend Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary's for the last forty-three years."
Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, "Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
"Just a minute," says the minister. "That man was a taxi driver and he gets a silken robe and golden staff. How can this be?"
"Up here, we work by results," explains Saint Peter. "While you preached, people slept; while he drove, people prayed."

NOBODY’S GOING THERE Ruth Sturdivant, in Reader's Digest
When my nine-year-old granddaughter addressed a letter to God at the Pearly Gates, Heaven, it was returned. Someone at the postal service had written across the envelope: "Nobody at the post office is headed that way. Sorry!"

E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR PETE Jerry C. Lamb in R.Digest 11/99 p. 72A

I was walking in Elm Grove Cemetery in Mystic, Conn., when I found the ultimate e-mail address. Carved on the headstone of one Petros Petrides is MysticPete@heaven.org.

I KNOW THIS PLACE Joseph Cardinal Bernardin from The Gift of Peace (Loyola)

Many people have asked me to tell them about heaven and the afterlife. I sometimes smile because I do not know any more than they do. Yet when one young man asked if I looked forward to being united with God and all those who have gone before me, I made a connection to an old memory.

The first time I traveled with my mother and sister to my parents' homeland of Tonadico di Primiero in Northern Italy, I felt as if I had been there before. After years of looking through my mother's photo albums, I knew the mountains, the land, the houses, the people. As soon as we entered the valley, I said, "I know this place. I am home." Somehow I think crossing from this life into life eternal will be similar. I will be home."

OPRAH MAKES IT TO HEAVEN US News 3/31/97 p. 18

Forget her TV rankings. Among a group of 15 prominent figures, Oprah Winfrey is a winner in the biggest rating game of all. In a recent survey, 66 percent of Americans said they believe that the popular talk show host is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to go to heaven. Others:

Mother Teresa - 79%

Michael Jordan - 65%

Colin Powell - 61%

Princess Diana 60%

Bill Clinton 52%

Al Gore and Hillary Clinton 55%

Newt Gingrich 40%

Pat Robertson 47%

Dennis Rodman 28%

O.J. Simpson 19%

Those surveyed (on their chances) 87%

WHAT AM I HERE AFTER? Eve Krupinski of Winter Park, FL. in Reminisce 3/92

A preacher came to see me the other day, and he said that, at my age, I should be thinking about the hereafter.

I told him that I do, all the time. No matter where I am, in the living room, in the kitchen, outside or into he garage, I ask myself, "What am I here after?"

(Heaven is) the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience... We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it.

OTHER FAITHS ON HEAVEN Time 3/24/97 p. 78

Heaven has many cartographers, and through the centuries many different heavens have been charted. To the variety of celestial landscapes in the West, Islam and Buddhism have raised their own particular paradises: the Koran details a heaven filled with beautiful, large eyed "companions" and youths of perpetual freshness; the sutras speak of a multiplicity of "Buddha fields," pleasant way stations on the journey to Nirvana. Adding to the plenitude, the New Age is now unrolling its own versions of eternity. The best selling author, internationally renowned medium and healer Rosemary Altea, for example, speaks of her vision: "Heaven is not a place; it's a state of awareness. Heaven is where your heart is, where your soul needs to be."

Muslims have a specific plan of paradise in mind, based on the stories of the Prophet's miraculous night journey to heaven. rising into the skies on the Buraq, a fantastic creature often described as part woman, part horse, part peacock. Muhammad meets Adam, who resides in the lowest heaven, and Jesus who is only in the 4th level. Abraham welcomes him in the 7th heaven before the Prophet is ushered into paradise for his encounter with God. It was in heaven, according to one tale, that Muhammad, on Moses' advice, bargained down God's original demand of 50 prayers a day to 5, the number of times a day each devout Muslim must face Mecca.

Buddhism has as many paradises as there are Buddhas. Each enlightened being has his or her own heaven, a concept probably borrowed from Hinduism, in which gods and goddesses inhabit a series of heavens. The primal heaven, however, was probably the one called Sukhavati, which may itself have borrowed some elements from the florid paradises of Zoroastrian Persia (whence the word pairi-daeza, or enclosure, the origin of our word paradise). As Sakyamuni, the Buddha of our cosmos, teaches, if the denizens of Sukhavati "desire cloaks of different colors and many 100,000 colors, then with these very best cloaks, the whole Buddha country shines." Presided over the Amitabha Buddha, Sukhavati, according to the ancient texts, had no ghosts, no beasts, no sickness - and no women. yet those who reach the Pure Land, as East Asian Buddhists call it, know the journey of their souls is not over. Wrote a 6th century Chinese master: "Although they dwell in 7 jeweled palaces, and have fine objects, smells, tastes and sensations, yet they do not regard this as pleasure... (and) seek only to leave that place." Nirvana, the ultimately selfless Buddhist goal of nonbeing, is beyond paradise.

In my Father's house are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you. John 14:2

Those who have lost a loved one in death go through deep sorrow. The vacant place in the home leaves an aching void in the hearts of those who remain behind. Sometimes the bereaved would give anything to have their loved one back again. But one glimpse of the blessings enjoyed by their dear ones in heaven would change their minds. They would not want them to return to the suffering and pain of this earth.

The following fable portrays how we might feel if we could see into heaven for an instant : A boy had a sister who was dying. He heard that if he could secure a leaf from the tree of life in heaven, she would be healed. So he approached the gate of glory and made his desire known to an angel. The celestial being suggested to the boy that even if his sister would be healed he could not guarantee she would never again be sick, suffer disappointment, or go through trials. Just then the angel deliberately opened the gate a little wider so the youngster could see inside. He could scarcely believe his eyes! Everything was wonderful and beautiful beyond description. After thinking for a moment, he exclaimed, "Forget the leaf ! May I come in with her?"

NO ONE EXPECTED ME! Belle Center Encourager, 2/15/95

I dreamed God came the other night

and heaven's gates swung open wide

With kindly face an angel welcomed me inside.

And there to my astonishment, stood folks I'd known on earth.

Some I had judged and labeled unfit with little worth.

Then angry words rose to my lips. But never were set free.

For every face showed stunned surprise, NO ONE EXPECTED ME!

KNOWING HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN R.Digest 2/84 p. 153 From Bishop Fulton J.

Sheen's autobiography "Treasure in Clay."

I stopped to ask a few boys for directions to the Town Hall where I was giving a lecture. They told me where the Town Hall was and then asked, "What are you going to do there?"

"I'm giving a lecture on heaven and how to get there. Would you like to come and find out?"

"You're kidding," one boy said. "You don't even know the way to the Town Hall.

SHOWING THE WAY R.Digest 2/76 p.33

King George III had a sense of humor. As a patron of the sciences, he ordered a 40 foot telescope built for the astronomer William Herschel, and when it was finished, he took the Archbishop of Canterbury to see the marvelous instrument. "Come, my Lord Bishop," he told the prelate. "I will show you the way to Heaven."

MARK TWAIN ON HEAVEN & HELL R.Digest 11/77 p. 213

I'll take Heaven for the climate and Hell for society.

A little boy, caught in mischief, was asked by his mother: "How do you expect to get into heaven?"

He thought a minute and then said: "Well, I'll just run in and out and in and keep slamming the door until they say, 'For goodness sake, come in or stay out.' Then I'll go in."

A little girl was walking with her father in the country. No neon signs, no automobile headlights or street lamps marred the stillness of the crisp evening. As she looked into the deep blue velvet sky, studded with an array of diamonds which put the most dazzling Tiffany display to shame, she said, "Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what do you think the right side will be like?"

Some day all believers in Jesus Christ will see the "right side" of heaven.

After our 2-year-old son, Jamie, died, I was comforted by the thought he was well cared for in heaven. But I worried that he had forgotten the Mommy and daddy who loved him. Since there's no sadness in heaven, I reasoned, he can't miss us.

Finally I asked my husband, Dwaine, "Do you think Jamie just forgot us? Or does he wonder why we're not there along with him?"

Dwaine was thoughtful. "Remember when we used to leave him with his grandma for a few hours? He'd kiss us good-bye, then run to the toy shelf. When we returned, he'd run toward us with outstretched arms, happy to see us again."

I nodded, remembering our sturdy boy flinging himself at me.

Dwaine continued. "But Grandma said he never cried while we were gone. He knew we always came back for him."

My husband put his arm around me. "Well, I think that's how it is now. Don't you imagine God surpasses even Grandma at keeping little boys happy and secure?"

-- Bonnie H. Brechbill, Chambersburg, PA

THE BOTTOM SIDE OF HEAVEN Guideposts, May 1964

A little girl and her father walked in the evening. Fascinated, she looked up at the stars, but made no comment. "What are you thinking?" her father asked and the little girl replied, "If the bottom side of heaven is so beautiful, how wonderful the other side must be."