I wanna go to Heaven when I die…

The Gospel I ‘heard’ as a young child and the Gospel I love at age 56 are very different in the telling. Both center on the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Both feature the Cross and the Resurrection prominently. But, living the Gospel is where the great chasm opens. I ‘accepted Jesus into my heart’ when I was around 5. What that meant to me for the next 25 years was that when I died I was ‘going to Heaven.’ What was largely lost to me was the calling to be a part of the work of extending His kingdom. If I heard that at all it meant ‘getting more people in the church building.’

My faith was unintentionally self-focused. There was a real concern about morality. The list of moral issues was skewed to sex. Not much was said about greed, abuse of power, or seeking peace. Justice for the poor was an after-thought. If I lived a holy life I could please God. This would earn me a greater reward, a bigger crown, a larger mansion. I did believe in the Kingdom, but understood that to mean that some glorious Day, Jesus would come down to destroy everything and give all of us  nice people a beautiful Eden to live in.  To the extent I was engaged with this present world, it was with a message of ‘get ready for Heaven.’  “Turn or burn,” summed it up! 

But a person cannot become acquainted with the thundering prophets or read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount without coming the realization that there is much more to the Gospel and Kingdom living than getting to Heaven. The Good News is about starting to live the ‘eternal life’ right here, right now! Jesus says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10, KJV) That’s not just after we die. It’s about finding a purposeful, meaning way to live while we’re dying!

Evil came into God’s Creation. It messed everything up, brought suffering and death. It made people mean and hateful. It still robs us of dignity and worth so that we live like mere animals, preoccupied with sex, food, comfort, and security. Where the darkness of evil goes unchallenged, an awful terror develops. Demons rejoice! The Bible describes the way the world looks when God is abandoned: "Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." (Romans 1:28-31, NIV)

Then God sent His Son with the Gospel! "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16-17, NIV)  When the Light shines into the darkness, life burgeons. People learn to love. The gifts of the Holy Spirit teach us how to live in harmony, allow us to create beauty, strengthen us to confront evil, and give us courage to die to sin and Self. This Good News changes everything! "Once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord." (Ephesians 5:8-10, NLT)

Yes, “I wanna go to Heaven when I die…” and thank the Lord for the promise of my home in the Father’s house. But, until then, I will LIVE the Gospel! With Christ as Lord, I will build the Kingdom, praying “may your kingdom come and your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” 

This is my favorite prayer.  May it be your word for today from the Word.

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV)