He Has You

For some of us, our pets are part of our family. We love them dearly and want the best for them. We take care of them, but at the same time, they take care of us. They can be our most faithful companions here on earth. Pets are truly a blessing from God.

To realize your blessings, just try to count them. “Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered” (Psalm 40:5 NKJV).

I tell people that I have full-time therapists living in my home. These therapists have four paws and a tail. No matter how hard my day has been, they are always there to help me. I think when we get to heaven, we will be a little more like our animals than they will be like us.

To go from glory to glory, you cannot remain as you are. What was good enough before will not be enough for what He has for you. “But we all…are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV ).

Many years ago, I read a book called Heaven by Randy Alcorn. He dedicated one chapter to discussing the question of if we will be reunited with our pets in heaven. He could not prove this with any direct reference to Scripture but believed it because of who God is.

The evidence of God’s love in us is God’s love through us. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8 NKJV).

We all come to believe things that we cannot prove. Nobody has sat on the surface of the Sun to measure if it is really hot or not. But we all know that when the Sun is shining brightly, we can feel its warmth all around us. Similarly, we also can feel the goodness of God.

A thankful heart knows and trusts that the Lord is good. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:1 NKJV).

This past week, I had the great privilege of praying over a most precious dog. This sweet animal had cancer, and it was so far along that there was nothing that could be done reasonably to help her. With some things in life, prayer is our only option.

Sometimes, diseases stay because nobody has commanded them to leave. “After leaving the synagogue that day, Jesus went to Simon’s home, where he found Simon’s mother-in-law very sick with a high fever. ‘Please heal her,’ everyone begged. Standing at her bedside, he rebuked the fever, and it left her. And she got up at once and prepared a meal for them” (Luke 4:38-39 NLT).

I have no power within me whatsoever to heal an animal. But I can always ask the Lord to whom nothing is impossible. I believe He can heal this dog, and I trust Him with whatever His decision will be. My only responsibility is to ask Him and then trust Him with His answer.

I don’t need to prove my prayers can bring healing; I only need to have faith that His power can. “If you have faith when you pray for sick people, they will get well. The Lord will heal them, and if they have sinned, he will forgive them.” (James 5:15 CEV).

I have had the great honor to witness the Lord’s miraculous healing of my own animals. When I prayed for them, it was a simple prayer and would not impress anyone who may have heard it. But the power of prayer is not in our delivery but in the faith that carries the prayer to heaven.

Faith is the power of prayer. “If you have faith when you pray, you will be given whatever you ask for” (Matthew 21:22 CEV).

Currently, I have two blessed dogs, Samson and Princess Belle. They are Bernese Mountain Dogs and are the sweetest, most gentle creatures you can imagine. Whatever creature you may have, God has given them to you to care for them while they are here on earth.

In whatever ways you do not care for the needs of your family, you are wrong. [In my book, our pets are family] “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8 NKJV).

There comes a day when we must let our animals go, and I believe that they are going to heaven. From my perspective, our pets deserve to go to heaven more than we do. But of course, it is through the goodness of Christ that we can go there, too.

You can’t find anyone in heaven who deserves to be there but Christ alone. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood…” (Romans 3:23-25 NLT).

The great fall on Earth affected not only all of mankind but every creature in nature as well. Our animals suffer, and our animals die, but we have a loving Creator who loves us all. We don’t need to fear going to heaven and my prayer is we will see our every pet when we get there.

Look forward to heaven more than fear the things in between. “But we are looking forward to God’s promise of new heavens and a new earth afterwards, where there will be only goodness” (2 Peter 3:13 TLB).

I heard a saying, “Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.” This is equally true regardless of the creature that you hold close to you. How you treat animals reflects how you feel towards the One who created them all.

How you treat the least reveals the most. “A righteous man has kind regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel” (Proverbs 12:10 AMP).

Blessings to you,

Paul Balius