“If you accept Jesus as your Savior, you will go to Heaven
when you die,” was the basic message that I took away from presentations of the
Gospel for a long time. Thrown in was a substantial amount of “be good so that
you have a rich reward when Jesus returns.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with those statements, except that they are
just half the truth! I started to
wonder, does this present world count for nothing, except to be a holding area
for us until we die? Isn’t the Gospel
for here, for now? And, it is!
I am looking forward to Heaven’s perfect enjoyment of the
Presence of God, but there is a whole lot of living to be done in His Name
before I depart. When we read of Jesus
sending His disciples out on mission, He did not tell them to go and promise the
faithful a home in Heaven. He “gave them power and authority to cast out
demons and to heal all diseases. Then he sent them out to tell everyone about
the coming of the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick." (Luke 9:1-2,
NLT) God’s rule is breaking into
Creation once sub-let to sin and the devil, now being reclaimed by the
preaching of the Cross and the Resurrection.
We are not to be totally future-focused. We are to be priests who bring
the power of God, the wholeness of the Spirit, the restoration of the world
that God loves. Just before His
ascension to the right hand of the Father, Jesus promised that His followers
would "receive power when the Holy
Spirit comes … “ so that they would be able to carry the Kingdom message “to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8,
NIV)
The letters to the Church are full of promise about the full
life of the Spirit now. In the amazing 8th chapter of
Romans, we learn that we cannot will ourselves to be good enough for God. That is living ‘by the Law,’ and because we have a sinful nature, it only condemns
us until we come to Christ. Then, we
learn that by the Spirit the "righteous
requirements of the law” are fully met in us who live “according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:4, NIV) In other words, we don’t have to wait for
Heaven to know God intimately and to defeat sin’s power. Note the present
tense of God’s promise. “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit
have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man e is death,
but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind f is hostile to God. It
does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful
nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful
nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” (Romans 8:5)
Certainly there is a perfection coming after the Return of
the Lord when the Kingdom’s promise will be fully revealed. And yet, our
heavenly life is not to be deferred until some future event. It starts now. "We have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live
according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die;
but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
because those who are led by the Spirit
of God are sons of God." (Romans 8:12-14, NIV)
The completion of the Gospel is not the Cross though the message
of forgiveness and reconciliation found there is both wonderful and key to our
salvation. The Gospel is finished at the
Empty Tomb. The Resurrected Christ is
God’s statement to all of Creation that He reigns supreme, that His will
triumphs, that the power of sin to hold humanity enslaved is broken. Against that backdrop, we take Christ’s
commission to “go, preach, and make
disciples,” and we wed it to the assurance that is found by the testimony
of our Risen Lord.
Here’s the word from the Word. I pray it deepens your faith, strengthens
your hope, and fires your passion to do the work of the Kingdom – right here,
right now. "Who got the last word,
oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so
frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive
power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt,
death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! With all this
going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back.
Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for
him is a waste of time or effort." (1 Corinthians 15:55-58, The
Message)
Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee
Joyful, joyful, we
adore Thee;
God of glory, Lord of
love!
Hearts unfold like
flowers before Thee,
Opening to the sun
above.
Melt the clouds of sin
and sadness,
Drive the dark of
doubt away.
Giver of immortal
gladness,
Fill us with the light
of day.
Thou art giving and
forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever
blest.
Wellspring of the joy
of living,
Ocean depth of happy
rest.
Thou our Father,
Christ, our Brother;
All who live in love
are Thine.
Teach us how to love
each other
Lift us to the joy
divine.
Mortals join the
mighty chorus
Which the morning
stars began.
Father love is
reigning o'er us,
Brother love binds man
to man.
Ever singing, march we
onward,
Victors in the midst
of strife!
Joyful music lifts us
sunward,
In the triumph song of
life.
Edward Hodges | Henry Van Dyke | Ludwig van Beethoven
Public Domain
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