In a biography about Mrs. Roosevelt, “No Ordinary Time,” written by Doris Goodwin. She noted that a verse of poetry given to Eleanor by a friend inspired her to make the rest of her life worthy of her husband’s memory. One poetic verse turned that woman’s depression and loneliness around, and she lived for a different reason. This one poetic verse was her constant verse of encouragement. “They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind. In those whom they have blessed, they live a life again.” Isn’t that a great quote?

This is what Jesus’ disciples experienced after his death. This is what we’ve been handed by those who came before us. They paid dearly for our freedom. We need to stop living as if the purpose of life is to arrive at death’s door safely. We’re in the day where you don’t find a lot of new heroes. In the early days of our existence there were heroes being made on a regular basis. And, those heroes can be defined by a number of things, a number of ways qualifying them to carry that edict of life. These people we refer to as heroes, and they paid a dear price for all of us.

We are not seeing heroes rise up in our day. We’re seeing haters rise up. We’re seeing those rise up that want to tear down everything. We see a lot of that. But we don’t see heroes as much as we should and could. The people that land on Mars coming up in a few years… Those people will be heroes. I have some books at home about heroes of America. One is all about military people that were heroes. Then, I have one that’s just about people in general, about artists to inventors to presidents to singers, etc. It’s a fascinating book with short little bios about people.

One thing about heroes that I discovered, to my utter surprise, was not any of them, but one, was perfect. I really searched! I was hard pressed to find these heroes that carried the stature of so many wonderful things. But, one thing that’s put on them is to be perfect. And yet, page after page after page…empty. I could name the ones that we all ooh and ahh about. From Kathryn Kuhlman and great preachers, to Dr. Martin Luther King, to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. They all had some aspect that qualified them to be a hero. But, I still can’t find that one thing. Yet, there was one person who came on the earth who came perfect. The world didn’t make him anything but what he was when he came. He left perfect. He took Heaven and showed us what Heaven looks like when you live where He lived.

We will continue on Friday! Have a great week!