- Jul 13, 2004
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"Are you interested in entering God's world?"
If you were to ask that question of many Christians today, they would immediately think of it in terms of heaven. Not in terms of a place but in terms of time.
In terms of some existence that occurs to us when this time, this life, is over. At the end of life, when we die, we go to heaven and there we will see God in all His glory, and we enter into God's kingdom. We enter God's realm at that moment when we die and many people think of the kingdom of God in such a way as this.
I think Jesus would agree with you if you think about heaven in that way, but he would disagree when it came to the timing of the event.
As far as Jesus was concerned, heaven was not "out there" and it certainly wasn't in a specific place, a geographic place on earth. It was all around us. It was right now.
The kingdom of God is near you. And the summons to enter God's world, to enter God's realm, to enter God's existence, to enter God's kingdom, is a summons that comes to us right now where we are.
It's a choice to be made about the kind of life we are to live and what the dominant reality in that life is to be.
Is it only to be what we see, important as that is? Flesh and blood, remember, is what Jesus took upon himself. He came to us, touched us, this is important, this life. But is there more to life than what we see?
Have we entered God's realm? Are we entering God's realm? Do we even see this other world around about us? Is it a dominant reality in our lives?
If you were to ask that question of many Christians today, they would immediately think of it in terms of heaven. Not in terms of a place but in terms of time.
In terms of some existence that occurs to us when this time, this life, is over. At the end of life, when we die, we go to heaven and there we will see God in all His glory, and we enter into God's kingdom. We enter God's realm at that moment when we die and many people think of the kingdom of God in such a way as this.
I think Jesus would agree with you if you think about heaven in that way, but he would disagree when it came to the timing of the event.
As far as Jesus was concerned, heaven was not "out there" and it certainly wasn't in a specific place, a geographic place on earth. It was all around us. It was right now.
The kingdom of God is near you. And the summons to enter God's world, to enter God's realm, to enter God's existence, to enter God's kingdom, is a summons that comes to us right now where we are.
It's a choice to be made about the kind of life we are to live and what the dominant reality in that life is to be.
Is it only to be what we see, important as that is? Flesh and blood, remember, is what Jesus took upon himself. He came to us, touched us, this is important, this life. But is there more to life than what we see?
Have we entered God's realm? Are we entering God's realm? Do we even see this other world around about us? Is it a dominant reality in our lives?
