It has been said by many in the past few years that we don’t preach about hell and judgment enough. This morning I suddenly got a chilling thought that perhaps we don’t preach Heaven enough and hence we have tried to actually recreate it here on earth lacking the understanding of Heaven. Looking around I see many living in more hell than I can imagine, abuse, people bound by addictions that literally control their lives, starvation…to preach judgment to the dying masses seems a bit of overkill to me. Looking at Yeshua’s example it seems to me He warned the religious establishment of judgment for not living up to what they knew and for perverting the truth, but when it came to the masses He healed them, delivered them from demonic influence, and told them the good news (gospel) of the Kingdom. They knew they needed help, that they couldn’t make it on their own. Do we?
In my mind to truly preach Heaven we have to disassociate it from the quasi notion of getting what we want and not having to work for it, of escapism, of merely a reward for being superior here and now. Instead if we could see it as a destination the world was bound for before the fall, a place that the relationship we start here really takes root and we become truly all that we were meant to be, human in the fullest sense in continual communion with the One who loves us beyond our comprehension. Maybe we could get the here and now in focus and realize the actual reason we are living in this world of matter, finding out what really matters. In pursuit of happiness we’ve poured our resources into making things easier, having more time for fun, experiencing as little pain as possible, we anesthetize instead of deal with issues, as long as I don’t feel the pain, I don’t get too hyper about what is actually wrong. In other words we deal with the natural, the physical so much that we leave our souls bankrupt and thus are never really satisfied much less happy.
Ask yourself what’s more important what we have or who we are? Is achievement what we do or what/who we impact by what we do? Is life here meant to be only what our senses can take in, that natural physical realm that we sometimes feel is the real world? Is it not true that the essence of who we really are can’t really be measured in the doing and having? Do we need God to help us live easier, nicer lives here or to work with us in the natural state of a fallen world to redeem it and us?
If we truly taught about Heaven and Abba’s desire for His will to be done on earth as it is there perhaps we might get our lives here more in focus, perhaps we would stop trying to recreate earth in our view of heaven, perhaps we could get on with the reason we are here on earth. Perhaps, just perhaps.
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