Agreed.
to the point that we will want to continue in relationship with those we loved in this life. Could you be happy in Heaven without your wife? Your daughter?
I didn't mean to imply that our loved ones wouldn't be there. (I think you know that) It's just that, like I said, there is a special union of souls between man and wife. Likewise among the man and wife and the soul they helped bring into this world.
In Heaven we will have this special bond, this special union of souls with everybody.
In a place of perfect love how could we love "our" family more than we love anyone else?
If animals are in Heaven, it will be because their presence adds to our joy.
I agree with that. I was taught that we will have no need for such things because we will already be perfectly fulfilled being with God. But I am willing to be flexible here. So many people are expecting to see their pets there. And God is their Creator as well, why wouldn't they be at the throne?
SD
I can just picture my cat Tweek up there, horking up heavenly hairballs!
If animals are in Heaven, it will be because their presence adds to our joy.
Two or three years ago if I had read this, I would have been sure that Christ had returned, and I had missed the boat.
Back then I saw animal worship on the way in, but since I had put it on the same plain as homosexuality or Idolatry, I thought it would go away, but it didn't, and now we have Christians defending it.
We seem to think that God gets so involved in our lives, he even develops our taste, habits, and likes and dislikes. I suppose that as I write, some animal loving monk somewhere is searching diligently for a paradox scripture that can be used to support this nonsense, and before long, it will be doctrine.
God made the animals that he saw could be domesticated, to die much earlier then we do, so we humans couldn’t get overly attached to them, but we did it anyway.
I think it is a sign of a sick spoiled and selfish society that will even entertain such a thing, to think that just because we develop an attachment to an animal, that God is suddenly changing his rules to fit us. Soon they will be giving last rites, baptizing and feeding them Eucharist dog chow.
If we allow dogs and cats to obtain this status of having a soul, then anyone who has any kind of a pet can do the same, and soon the church will look like a pet store. Remember that with out the Spirit of God, all perish and have no quickening. Mankind is the only one that God has chosen to work with, and animals were put here for our enjoyment and nothing more.
Prov 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
Dogs are mentioned many times, but always in a derogatory way, they were an unclean animal to the Jew, as was the cat, of which is not mentioned once in the Bible
Satan has turned everything up side down in this world, even the snake has been given a status as a great pet for some, it would seem that anything that God put down, man has gone out of his way to give new status.
Mal 3:6 For I am the Lord, I change not;
Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
I doubt seriously if God is going to change his eternal plan just because we have a pet that has put up with us where no one else has been able to. :-}