Every week, we experience just a taste of the glory and majesty of heaven. While we do experience love, joy, and redemption on a daily basis, that isn’t what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about going to church.
That may be the most Sunday school answer of all time. But let me explain. Each week, we go to Jesus Christ Church of the Valley which is next door to our ministry center for the 8 a.m. English service. The service isn’t the extraordinary part though, it is who is there.
Our team consists of 11 people representing the states of Texas, Michigan, Alabama, North Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Colorado, Georgia, and Missouri. In addition, we live with two other people; one from Colorado and the other from Taiwan. When you look around our group, you begin to realize that God is huge. People from all over the country are gathered to worship Him… in the Philippines.
It is so much larger than my team though. Today was the first Sunday for a world race squad that had just been to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala and they will be traveling to seven more nations in the next seven months. Another race squad just left. The Philippines was their first nation, so they went to Malaysia and will travel to nine more nations after that. These teams are literally wrapping the globe in the gospel.
But that is only Adventures in Missions! Yesterday, 35 people from a swim team in Taiwan flew in for a week and worship with us this morning. In the month that we have been here, there has also been a team from America to give a seminar to local pastors and a large team from Singapore that came for a few days. There are also routinely Koreans in the service, but I haven’t quite figured out where they fit it yet.
This assorted group is led by the Filipino band who passionately praises the Lord with everything they have every Sunday. In the five Sundays that I have attended, the message has been given by a pastor from Alabama, the regular Filipino pastor, a pastor from Australia on sabbatical, and another Filipino pastor.
This is where we see a glimpse of heaven.
Revelation 7:9-10 “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
Who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb.”
While we are far from representing every nation in our little Sunday worship service, we find joy in the various nations that we do represent. More importantly, we praise Jesus for being OUR God. His glory knows no borders. He is King over everything, and nothing shows me that quite like worshiping with my brothers and sisters from all over the world. Just like we will in heaven.
