Heaven For Kids Order Printed Copy

Author: Randy Alcorn
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About the Book

"Heaven For Kids" by Randy Alcorn provides a kid-friendly introduction to the concept of heaven, answering questions about what heaven is like, who will be there, and how to get there. The book presents the idea of heaven in a clear, engaging way that helps young readers understand and look forward to the promise of eternity with God.

Elizabeth Elliot

“I have one desire now – to live a life with reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my strength and energy into it.” Elisabeth Elliot, an inspirational woman who remained faithful to God, and the calling he had laid on her heart, through many trials and tribulations. ELISABETH’S EARLY YEARS Elisabeth Elliot was born on December 27, 1926 in Brussels, Belgium, where her parents served as missionaries. Before she was a year old they moved to America to Germantown, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. Her family grew when they came to America, and Elisabeth gained four younger brothers and one younger sister. While they lived in Germantown, Elisabeth’s father was the editor for the Sunday School Times, which was a weekly journal that contained Sunday School lessons that were used simultaneously in several Sunday School classrooms to keep the teaching and learning cohesive in churches throughout the country. CALLING TO ECUADOR A true pioneer in the world of Christianity, Elisabeth went to Wheaton College and studied Greek, because she desired to translate the Bible for the remote regions in the world. While at the college, she met Jim Elliot. After graduation, Elisabeth went on a missionary expedition to Ecuador with other students from Wheaton, including Jim Elliot. In the first year of their missionary journey, Jim and Elisabeth worked in different regions. A year after entering Ecuador, Jim joined Elisabeth in the Quichua Indian tribe. In 1953, Jim and Elisabeth were married and continued to serve in Ecuador. They had a daughter, Valerie Elliot Shepard. When the Auca tribe in Eastern Ecuador killed Jim Elliot and his missionary partners, Elisabeth refused to give up on the people in that tribe. She continued to live in the region with her daughter and Rachel Saint, the sister of another one of the missionaries that the Auca tribe killed. They lived among the Quichua tribe. While living in the Quichua tribe, two Auca women lived with Elisabeth for one year. During that year of living with the two Auca women, Elisabeth came to understand why the tribe killed her husband and the other missionaries. The tribe feared that outsiders were going to come into their tribe and take away their freedom. With that understanding, Elisabeth and Rachel Saint were able to go to the Auca tribe and build relationships with them. They led the people of the tribe to Jesus. The tribe saw and understood the forgiveness and grace that Elisabeth and Rachel extended to them. Elisabeth wrote two books while she lived in Ecuador that contained her experiences and Jim’s experiences with the Auca tribe. She wrote Through the Gates of Splendor, which gives an account of her and Jim’s experiences with the Auca tribe. ELISABETH’S RETURN TO AMERICA After spending two years with the Auca, Elisabeth came to America with her daughter in 1963. Elisabeth and her daughter, Valerie lived in New Hampshire when they returned to America. Elisabeth met Addison Leitch, a theologian professor at Gordon Conwell University, and was thrilled to marry him in 1969. During their marriage, Addison and Elisabeth toured the United States with speaking engagements. Elisabeth never limited her message to women. She would inspire other Christians to live their lives, both men and women, with a passion to live for God. Four years after they were married in 1973, Addison lost his battle with cancer and died. Valerie was thirteen when Elisabeth married Addison and was excited that God gave her a “Daddy.” When he died, Valerie was devastated to lose the father that she knew. She knew about Jim Elliot her biological father, but she knew Addison as a father who was present with her. ELISABETH’S LOVE REDEEMED After Leitch’s death, Elisabeth had two lodgers in her home. One of the lodgers married her daughter, and the other lodger, Lars Gren, married Elisabeth. Lars Gren was a hospital chaplain. Lars and Elisabeth were married until her death. At the age of 89, on June 15, 2015 Elisabeth Elliot died. As her soul resides in heaven, her legacy lives on earth with her writings and stories. ELISABETH ELLIOT’S BELIEFS ON FEMINISM Elisabeth was never afraid to tell where the woman’s place was. She believed that women in the military needed to be in non-combative places because they would be needed at home, even if they were single. Also, she believed strongly that a married woman, especially to a pastor, was to support his ministry and not begin her own career. Her beliefs came because she counseled so many women whose marriages were falling apart because the women insisted on working outside of the home. Also, she studied the Bible and understood what it meant for women. Elisabeth didn’t like addressing the issue, but she was very bold and forthright in her answers. Elisabeth knew how to answer the question of women speaking in the church. She declined speaking on Sunday mornings to a congregation. If she were asked to speak at a Sunday School class or another meeting at a church, she would only oblige if a man who was a leader turned over the meeting to her. She understood the Bible to be clear that women are not to usurp authority over men. She knew that the Bible didn’t discriminate between Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings, but she also knew that she could not usurp authority over men. Her beliefs gained her respect, and men and women listened to her and read her books. BOOKS WRITTEN BY ELISABETH ELLIOT In her lifetime, Elisabeth wrote and published twenty-four books. She continued to travel and speak all over America sharing her story, her knowledge, and wisdom of God’s Word until her health stopped her in 2004. Her most popular books were Through the Gates of Splendor and Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under God’s Control. Through the Gates of Splendor tells the story of Jim Elliot and their encounter with the tribes in Ecuador that eventually took his life. Passion and Purity: Your Life Under God’s Control is a book that deals with dating for single Christians and how to honor God in their romantic relationships. It was published in 1984. In a world where everyone is doing whatever they please, she gives her own examples of love, heartache with the deaths of her husbands, and romance with all of them, while maintaining a pure relationship with them and before God. Elisabeth used her theological knowledge in her books and speeches. QUOTES FROM ELISABETH ELLIOT “God never denies our hearts’ desire except to give us something better.” “I have one desire now—to live a life with reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my strength and energy into it.” “Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.” “Fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.” “We cannot give our lives to God and keep our bodies to ourselves.” “And underneath are the everlasting arms.”

why god loves people who hate each other

The church is filled with lots of dangerously different people. There are rich and poor, old and young, male and female. We have families with fifteen children and fifty-year-old unmarrieds. There are Republicans and Democrats, executives and janitors, athletes, artists, and teachers. And the differences get even deeper — American, African, Asian, Latin, and Middle Eastern. Not to mention our personalities — outgoing and shy, bold and meek, patient and ambitious, emotional and unaffected, rational and relational. There’s no mystery why the Bible has so much to say about stress, conflict, and reconciliation between believers. How could there not be friction in a family like ours? A First-Century Food Fight Remember when Paul called out Peter in front of everyone? When the apostles — a very small group of very like-minded men who alone mediate the very words of Christ — don’t always get along, it could easily discourage the rest of us, right? Paul said, “I opposed him to his face” (Galatians 2:11). So what was he so worked up about? Peter had stopped eating with Gentile believers to preserve his image among the Jews, and many had followed his example (2:12–13). But is that really that big of a deal? It may seem like Paul blew an empty seat in a lunchroom way out of proportion, but he didn’t. Paul saw that Peter’s decision denied the world-changing, death-defeating, unifying work of Christ. Through the gospel, God was doing something uniquely beautiful and glorious by not only reconciling people to himself, but also bringing them together in love across every imaginable barrier and boundary. Why Did God Make Us So Different? We might be lulled into forgetting all of our differences are due to the God himself, who knit us together, every cell and disposition, before we were even born (Psalm 139). He’s never surprised that we’re different. In fact, he knows every difference completely and intimately because he designed them. Think for a minute about the thousands of years now of bloody, almost unrelenting, hostile conflict between Jews and Gentiles. God did that. God made Israel “distinct from every other people on the face of the earth” (Exodus 33:16). He set them violently against every neighboring nation (Deuteronomy 7:2). It was the worldwide rehearsal of Joseph and his fancy coat, when his father made him the enemy of all his brothers by setting him apart with his special love (Genesis 37). Why would he design Jews and Gentiles for so much division and destruction? For this reason: “[Christ] himself is our peace, who made us both one and has broken down the wall of hostility . . . and reconciled us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:14, 16). The God-designed differences — even hostilities — between these two peoples was meant to show the invincible power of the gospel message to produce love. When Two Become One God’s full acceptance of us in Jesus binds up the brokenness in our relationships. That’s a significant, intentional part of the most important plan in history, God’s plan to save his children from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Christ came to repair what our rebellion had wrecked in our relationship with him, but he also came to reunite us in love with people different than us in every imaginable way. Through the gospel, in light of every conceivable contrast, God has united us in at least three remarkable realities. 1. We are one in death. This is where Paul turns first with Peter. “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. . . . By works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16). Self-righteousness has never rescued anyone from God’s wrath, because no one has lived and loved God’s law flawlessly. “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). Therefore, we all — without exception — were dead in our sin and without hope in ourselves (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 6:23). 2. We are one in hope. “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:26–29). Everything that elevates us over one another in everyday society is eliminated before our heavenly Father for eternity. We can’t escape comparison, class, and cliques in this life, but God embraces us each equally from every family, country, and social status. In Christ, we are all — without exception and distinction — complete and full heirs of eternal life, the world, and God himself. 3. Therefore, we are one in life. Jesus promised the world would see him in our love for one another (John 13:35). How much more powerfully will they see him in our love for one another when we’re really, really different? When we love people like us, we don’t surprise many people in the world. But there’s a strange and beautiful love across boundaries that they simply cannot explain. It’s a love that restores the broken (Galatians 6:1) and bears heavy, inconvenient, painful burdens (Galatians 6:2). It’s a life that loves to do good to everyone, especially to those with whom we’re one in Christ (Galatians 6:10). Miraculously, there’s a oneness in this diverse family that “fulfills the law of Christ.” The happy, servant-hearted, committed, mutually beneficial relationship between flawed and different sinners displays the character and glory of God. Seeing Differences Differently The gospel turns haters into brothers, enemies into sisters. One of the most powerful and winsome things that Jesus purchased with his death was unlikely love. So we have to learn to see our differences differently, to see the contrasts and even inconveniences as unique canvases for Christ and his redeeming love for us.