{"id":10674,"date":"2024-05-29T10:35:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T14:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=10674"},"modified":"2024-05-29T10:35:22","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T14:35:22","slug":"texas-author-recounts-70-near-death-experiences-who-experienced-god-of-light-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/05\/texas-author-recounts-70-near-death-experiences-who-experienced-god-of-light-and-love.html","title":{"rendered":"Texas Author Recounts 70 Near-Death Experiences Who Experienced God of Light and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Imagine all the love you\u2019ve experienced in your entire life, from parents, spouses, friends, and family \u2014 and then multiply it by a thousand.\u00a0That\u2019s the kind of love experienced by people who\u2019ve had near-death experiences. They report being in\u00a0God\u2019s presence. John Burke, the\u00a0Texas-based bestselling author\u00a0of \u201cImagine Heaven<\/em>\u201d and now the follow-up book, \u201cImagine the God of Heaven<\/em>,\u201d writes of the topic vividly.\u00a0Together with his wife, Kathy, of Gateway Church in Austin, he is also the president of Gateway Leadership Initiative (GLI), a nonprofit organization. He and his family live in Austin.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Burke said he spoke with 70 \u201cdifferent people for \u2018Imagine the God of Heaven\u2019 \u2014 from every continent, every religious background. And yes, they encountered this\u00a0God of light and love, but many of them also encountered Him as Jesus.\u201d NDEs, as they are known, are a scientifically recognized phenomenon that occurs when people are clinically dead.\u00a0Some even describe scenes they couldn\u2019t possibly have seen except supernaturally. \u00a0Burke, who talked at length on the\u00a0\u201cLighthouse Faith” podcast<\/a>, interviewed one woman named Mary who died in childbirth.<\/p>\n

Burke said, “She leaves her body, and she’s in the presence of God. She feels this incredible forgiveness and love, and He tells her, ‘Your son is going to live.'” Burke said Mary is told she must go back. He continued, “As she’s coming back to her body, she passes through the ceiling and past the top side of the ceiling fan. She is resurrected and is trying to tell the doctors and nurses about this incredible experience she had. Everybody thinks she’s just hallucinating. Psychotic.”\u00a0 Medical staff apparently said that Mary had no heartbeat and no brainwaves. “Imagine the God of Heaven.”<\/p>\n