Good Morning Regular Joes and Janes;

Just a quick devotional thought as I need to be out the door really early today.

Taken from digitaldreamdoor.com

How many Pearly Gates jokes have you heard over the years?  Virtually all of them involve Biblical error, yet we repeat them because we find them funny, humorous or revealing in some way.  Did you ever think about the spiritual implecations of these jokes?  The jokes generally give some kind of test that allows the parties waiting at the Pearly Gate to “work” their way into heaven.  Yet the Bible clearly states that works won’t get you there.

Ephesians 2:4-9

4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.

6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

7  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–

9 not by works, so that no one can boast.10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

How many people only know of the Loving God of the Universe through jokes about the Pearly Gates?  How many Christians are swayed in their thinking by these jokes rather than the many verses that tell what life after death is really like?  I am not saying that we shouldn’t be telling these jokes but rather that they are a great opportunity to tell people about the reality of life after death.  After all we don’t want them turned away when they get to that meeting with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, do we.

Go out and have a great day and feel free to send me  your Pearly Gates jokes if you like.

Regular Joe

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