Heaven on Earth
I’ve been thinking a lot about heaven. When I go to the Campus Crusade meeting next month at Widener University, I’m going to discuss it. Here it is: when you ask folks to describe heaven what will they talk about? Pearly gates? Streets of gold? Mansions? Now what if that is a perfect description of both heaven and hell? What really makes heaven, heaven? Isn’t it the presence of God? And wouldn’t hell be hell if no matter what it was like physically, there was the absence of God, all the goodness associated with Him, and you knew you were utterly, hopelessly separated?
God has not called us to a place but to a likeness and a relation, to be conformed to the image of his Son. Heaven is not a where but a who and our relationship with that Infinite Who. Jesus even said that eternal life was not forever in some blissful other place, but eternal life is found in knowing God and in knowing him (John17:3). We know God now. He resides in us. Heaven begins now. Eternity has started. In fact, as we carry God with us by his Spirit, everywhere we go we bring heaven with us.
Remember Moses before the burning bush? God told him it was holy ground that Moses was standing on. Why was it holy? Because God’s presence was there. Now since his presence is in us, wherever we go is holy ground. Think about that as you go to work. You are taking heaven with you. Your presence makes that work place holy because you bring God to work with you. That kinda changes our definition of ministry too, doesn’t it? We are “ministering” wherever we go, whatever we do, because we bring the holiness of God, the presence of God, heaven with us. We really can make a little bit of heaven on earth. That is how powerful we are. We can walk into the room of our unsaved friends and bring heaven to them by our presence. We can walk into the work place, the hospital, the dysfunctional home – and bring heaven to it. We invade enemy occupied territory everywhere we go, so let your life and your words declare freedom in Christ and bring heaven to bear in every situation.
God has not called us to a place but to a likeness and a relation, to be conformed to the image of his Son. Heaven is not a where but a who and our relationship with that Infinite Who. Jesus even said that eternal life was not forever in some blissful other place, but eternal life is found in knowing God and in knowing him (John17:3). We know God now. He resides in us. Heaven begins now. Eternity has started. In fact, as we carry God with us by his Spirit, everywhere we go we bring heaven with us.
Remember Moses before the burning bush? God told him it was holy ground that Moses was standing on. Why was it holy? Because God’s presence was there. Now since his presence is in us, wherever we go is holy ground. Think about that as you go to work. You are taking heaven with you. Your presence makes that work place holy because you bring God to work with you. That kinda changes our definition of ministry too, doesn’t it? We are “ministering” wherever we go, whatever we do, because we bring the holiness of God, the presence of God, heaven with us. We really can make a little bit of heaven on earth. That is how powerful we are. We can walk into the room of our unsaved friends and bring heaven to them by our presence. We can walk into the work place, the hospital, the dysfunctional home – and bring heaven to it. We invade enemy occupied territory everywhere we go, so let your life and your words declare freedom in Christ and bring heaven to bear in every situation.
posted by brian | 6:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home