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Ben Sasse, who used to be a US Senator, shares about the hope of heaven.

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What does heaven teach us about God? In this collection, you’ll hear amazing stories and biblical insights about heaven from popular episodes of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Featuring guests like John Burke, Lee Strobel, Randy Alcorn and Erwin Lutzer.

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Former Senator Ben Sasse shares about his recent cancer diagnosis, addressing human frailty and the reality of death, while accepting that God allows suffering. He also shares about redeeming the time by worshipping Jesus and loving your family in the time God has given you.  

What does heaven teach us about God? In this collection, you’ll hear amazing stories and biblical insights about heaven from popular episodes of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Featuring guests like John Burke, Lee Strobel, Randy Alcorn and Erwin Lutzer.

Get More Episode Resources 

If you enjoyed listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, please give us your feedback.

In a small church off the coast of England, a nine-year-old girl named Elaine lifted a quiet prayer.

The snowstorm hit Chicago on a Saturday, and many of the people stranded at Chicago's O'Hare Airport didn't get out of there until Tuesday. That scene was not unique for O'Hare, of course. I've sat in a plane on the runway for three hours just because brief thunderstorms went through. The fact is, O'Hare Airport is a hub for so many connecting flights to so many places. And because it's in the Midwest, it's near one of the Great Lakes and it can get hit with all kinds of weather, which sometimes shuts down one of the busiest airports in the world. Someone said, "When O'Hare sneezes, the whole airline system gets pneumonia." It's true that when bad weather makes the hub close down, nothing can get to where it needs to be.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Storms That Stop Us."

Stormy weather doesn't just shut down airports. It can shut down people, too. If you've been through a stormy time in your life recently, you know that tendency to sort of pull back, turn inward, and stop delivering what you usually deliver. And there's a problem with that. Just like O'Hare Airport in Chicago, you are a hub - you are a hub through whom God sends love and encouragement and leadership and help to the people around you. If bad weather shuts you down, the people around you are hurting.

In our word for today from the Word of God, we see Jesus being battered by the most severe storms any human being has ever faced. He's in agony on a Roman cross. He's abandoned by most of the people He counted on. He's suffering unspeakable pain, physically and spiritually. Jesus has been for so many the hub through which God has sent His love into their lives. Now, going through such awful turbulence and damage, will Jesus shut down and be all about himself?

John 19:25-27 - "Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, 'Dear woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' From that time on, the disciple took her into his home."

Here in the stormiest moment of His life, Jesus is still delivering God's love into people's lives. At a time when any of us would have been thinking totally about ourselves and the excruciating pain we were going through, Jesus is still thinking about the needs of others. Even then, even from the cross, He's thinking about His mother's needs. He's thinking about the needs of the man on the cross next to Him. He's calling for forgiveness for His executioners. With every reason to shut down, Jesus is still asking what He asked every day of His life, "Who needs Me here?"

And that is the model He has left for you and me, for those of us who have answered His invitation, "Follow me," to still be delivering His love even when we are being battered by the storm. When we're hurting, when we're tired, when we're stressed, our tendency is to think mostly about ourselves, isn't it? We go into survival mode, "Everybody get out of my way. I don't feel good," or "I'm really busy," or I'm really tired." And we get shut down, not by the storm, but by our self-centered, self-pitying response to the storm. Life is tough, so suddenly it's all about me, right?

But Jesus calls us, Jesus shows us something better, something higher - a more supernatural way to live, to draw on His grace, to keep giving out His love even when we feel battered, to be all about others when I feel like being all about me; because I will find my life by giving it away.

You are a divine hub for delivering God's resources into people's lives. You just can't let the storm shut you down!

Scripture often describes our behavior as the clothes we wear. In 1 Peter 5:5, Peter urges us to be “clothed with humility.” David speaks of evil people who clothe themselves “with cursing.”

Garments can symbolize character. The character of Jesus was a seamless fabric woven from heaven to earth, from God’s thoughts to Jesus’ actions. From God’s tears to Jesus’ compassion. From God’s word to Jesus’ response. All one piece. A picture of the character of Jesus.

But when Christ was nailed to the cross, He took off His robe of seamless perfection and assumed a different wardrobe—the wardrobe of indignity. He wore our sin so we could wear His righteousness.

Read more He Chose the Nails: What God Did to Win Your Heart

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Those with Down syndrome have tragically been targeted by abortions for years, but this story goes even further. When Yvonne Goldstein gave birth to her daughter with Down syndrome, she says medical staff encouraged her to let the baby die, telling her not to feed or care for her newborn.  

But she refused. She chose life. 

Suggesting that a precious child deserves to be abandoned, left to die devoid of the love and care of her mother simply because she has Down syndrome is appalling. 

Every life has purpose. Every child has dignity and a right to life.  

Not because of what they can do, but because of what they are. Human beings made in the image of God.  

Those with Down syndrome deserve to have their right to life defended, just like anyone else.