If you would like to add your thoughts, feelings, or memories about Richard Bieber please email us at maranathamirror18@gmail.com.

We will upload it manually to this site instead of a blog (which I don’t have the skills to manage yet).

Richard E Bieber passed into the Lord’s hands on Monday December 27, 2021. We know he is now rejoicing with Jesus in Paradise. Please pray for his wife and family and the many, many friends who will miss his kind, loving, and ever thoughtful and caring heart.

Lord, I thank you, like so many thank you for the life of Dick Bieber. A man who laid his heart before you in such a way that your living water poured through him to thousands. Only you, Lord, know the full impact. I thank you for how he cared for the flock you put in his care. I thank you for his love for you, his commitment to follow you wholeheartedly. I thank you for his fervent, faithful prayers. I thank you for his caring heart, his uncanny ability to remember not just names, but details of lives. I thank you for the gift he had of speaking and writing words that caught us on fire, enflaming our hearts with a love for you. May we like him, turn our hearts, our ears, our eyes to you so we never stray far from you , so that your tender love is able to permeate our whole beings…and the power of it touches many…like it has for our dear brother, our dear friend, our dear pastor Dick. Lord bring comfort to those who are going to dearly miss him, especially his wife Jean, his children, and his grandchildren. Lord, I thank you that Dick is now free from darkness, that not only is he wrapped in joy but I am confident that as you grabbed his hand to pull him into your eternal embrace you said …well done, my good and faithful servant. May his life continue to bear much fruit…even to the very end…helping many to seek you, to serve you, to love you, to draw strength from you no matter what faces us. Amen

The piece below was one of the last ones he sent me. He prepared me for this time by encouraging me to continue sharing his many messages after “he crosses over the Jordan”. There are a few thousand messages in “the pile” as he called it. So there will be plenty to choose from to continue posting messages that fit the hour. My prayer is that Dick’s powerful, moving messages continue to draw us closer and closer to the Living God, getting us all ready for the “big day”. Valerie

GETTING READY FOR THE BIG DAY

The day of our Lord’s return is known to no one but the Father.

When it arrives, all humanity will be there.

Darkness and Light will part forever.

There will be glory on this earth.

There is also a Big Day which for many of us is a near certainty:

The day we leave our bodies behind and “cross over the Jordan”.

Any life spent unaware of this day is the life of a fool.

“The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, `What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Luke 12

There are those who are convinced that the day of our death is the end of everything.

“When you’re dead, you’re dead. So get all the gusto you can while you’re alive.”

There are those who believe that everyone who dies ends up in a “better place”.

Hitler is in a better place?

Dead tyrants are in a better place?

There are those who see death as the beginning of Purgatory.

A place where our spirits get cleaned up through suffering.

Jesus keeps it simple.

He tells the thief dying beside him,

“Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Jesus tells us to make friends for ourselves “by means of the unrighteous mammon” so that when it fails, they may receive us into the eternal habitations.”

In his parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus Jesus describes a realm divided by a vast chasm.

Lazarus the beggar dies and is lifted to a place of peace in the presence of Abraham. Across the chasm the spirit of the dead rich man is in anguish, suffering in flames (of sadness and regret?).

Jesus prays for his disciples the night of his arrest…

…“Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world.”

John 17

According to Jesus each of us, at death, will await the resurrection at the place assigned to us by God.

If we have lived our lives under the power of his Cross, the Master has prepared a place for us.

“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

John 14

So how do we get ready for the Big Day?

By living each day in the light of Eternity.

By walking in the footsteps of the Master here in this realm of flesh and blood.

“And this is eternal life: that they know thee,

the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”

John 17

If I truly know God, if I know the Son, I will walk the eternal road God puts at my feet.

I will walk with God.

I will follow Jesus to my cross.

I will trust God in all things.

I obey the Master in all things

I will serve God wherever he puts me.

I will focus on the “one thing needful”: God’s Kingdom.

If this is my day-by-day life, I’m ready for the Big Day whenever it comes.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life.

And they shall never perish. And no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

John 10

Prayer: Oh Lord how we look forward to that Big Day when darkness and light are parted forever. May we also be prepared for our own big day so that we can enter into your glory. Oh Lord, separate the darkness from the light in us each day. Lord, help us to know you now, walk with you now… yes to walk whatever road you put at our feet following your voice our beloved shepherd. Maranatha Mirror

Message by Richard E. Bieber November 2021 Printable Version

Featured Art: Mindi Oaten mindioaten.com

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