God leaves us in freedom to choose heaven or hell – even in every moment of daily life, and going on to eternity. We are spiritual beings, and as such have connection to heaven and hell while living on earth. We are able to choose which direction we turn for our influence, as the quotes below describe.

“Each of us is a spirit. That is the source of our thinking and intending. This means that the spiritual world is right where we are, not distanced from us in the least. In short, as far as the deeper levels of our minds are concerned we are all in that world, surrounded by angels and spirits there.”
Divine Love and Wisdom 92

Continue reading Choose Your Own Adventure: Heaven or Hell →

We each fill many roles. There can be a lot of pressure to “get it right” in every aspect of life. The pressure can build to succeed in any role – student, wife, mother, co-worker, sister, friend, daughter. Sometimes it builds up in many places simultaneously and can be crippling. But, so long as we continue looking to the Lord and striving towards the long term goal of growing in love towards a heavenly life, “failure” is a useful necessity. For our Easter Sunday church service at New Church Westville that was the point of the sermon, which you can listen to here. In some ways even Jesus had to “fail” to accomplish His long term success. When we focus on moving forward and following the Lord failure helps us to grow in ways we never could otherwise and ultimately reach our heavenly goal.

“The fact that those who are being reformed are brought into a state of not knowing any truth, that is, into a state of desolation, insomuch that they experience grief and despair, and that at this point for the first time they receive comfort and help from the Lord, is something that is not known at the present day for the reason that few are being reformed. Those who are such that they are able to be reformed are brought into this state, if not during this life then in the next…. Continue reading We Must Fail To Succeed →

I often hear New Church men and women share the teachings that a person does not need to be Christian to be saved –that a mechanism for salvation is present in all religions. This is true.

What is less commonly discussed is the reality that, while Heaven may be accessible through many religions, those religions don’t all provide equal access. Some religions lead closer to the Lord than others.

Some paths are better than others.
Continue reading Some Paths are Better than Others →

Question: What do you do when you are the manager of a blog and you wake up Wednesday morning to the realization you have nothing to publish?

Answer: Defer to the Lord.

The Lord is present with every man, urging and pressing to be received; and His first coming, which is called the dawn, is when man receives Him, which he does when he acknowledges Him as his God, Creator, Redeemer, and Savior. From this time man’s understanding begins to be enlightened in spiritual things, and to advance into a more and more interior wisdom; and as he receives this wisdom from the Lord, he advances through morning into day, and this day lasts with him into old age, even to death; and after death he passes into heaven to the Lord Himself; and there, although he died an old man, he is restored to the morning of his life, and the rudiments of the wisdom implanted in him in the natural world grow to eternity. (True Christian Religion 766)