* In Memory of Toni Cotter

This is both a sad time and blessed time.

Our dear sister in Christ, Toni Cotter has passed and is with Jesus now. Many of you know Toni was stricken with cancer and recently the condition worsened.

Today’s devotion is in her honor. Please take a moment to thank God that He chose Toni and that she is in now in eternal peace.

Knowing Toni gave her life to Jesus is why we can rejoice. She is where there is no pain and suffering. She is truly at peace. May Toni’s life remind us all of our destiny and be used to bless us even now.

We know that Heaven is the spiritual realm in which the glory of God's presence is revealed, and in which dwell the angels of God, and all believers like Toni who have departed this world (Heb. 12:22-24).

We know that heaven is a place which human words are inadequate to fully describe. Ezekiel could only describe what the glory of Heaven was "like" or "resembles" (Ezek. 1). In reporting on his apparent visit to heaven, the apostle Paul said that he "heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak" (2 Cor. 12:4). What he saw was not only impermissible but impossible to describe in human terms! The Apostle Paul said that we shall be "astonished" when we see the Lord at His coming in glory (2 Thess. 1:10)!

Praise God Toni is now astonished!

Heaven was Toni’s immediate destination after death. To the thief on the cross, Jesus said, "Today you shall be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). Paul said that "to be absent from the body (is to be) at home with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8), and that should he depart this world, he would "be with Christ" (Phil. 1:23).

Praise God Toni is at home with the Lord!

Paul spoke of "the hope of righteousness" for which we wait (Gal. 5:5); the expectation of being made wholly righteous. In Romans chapter 7 he spoke of being released from the internal struggle against indwelling sin, through being set free from our mortal body (Rom. 7:23-24).

Praise God Toni is now made wholly righteous!

One day we will see Him "just as He is." And when we do, there will be something about our vision of Him that will purify our hearts from all sin and bond us eternally to Him!

Praise God Toni is purified!

There is no disunity in heaven because "perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). When we fully apprehend the perfect love which God has for us, and are cleansed from the sin that presently indwells us, our relationships with one another will finally be what God intended them to be.

Praise God Toni knows the bond of unity with other believers as God intended!

At the end of his beloved "Narnia Tales" C. S. Lewis describes the events that transpire as the characters in his story enter Heaven :

"The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Praise God Toni will live forever as she begins Chapter One of eternity!

We will miss you Toni and your life counted!