If This Isn't Heaven, I Don't Know What Is
Biblical Reasons Why We Should
And Practical Suggestions on How We Can
Create Heaven on Earth
Misplaced Affections?
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. {2} Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
(Colossians 3:1-2) |
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The idea of living as though the earth is heaven strikes some people as a violation of Paul's command to set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth.
There is great irony here. Most people who make this criticism and long to be raptured into heaven have little more to look forward to in heaven than such things as a reunion with a deceased relative or friend. Perhaps they have forgotten the words of Christ:
And Jesus said unto another, "Follow Me."
But he said, "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father."
{60} Jesus said unto him, "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."
{61} And another also said, "Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house."
{62} And Jesus said unto him, "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
(Luke 9:59-62) |
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For most people, heaven (or "the millennium," or "the New Heavens and New Earth," or "the Kingdom of Heaven") holds an unlimited supply of life and earthly pleasures -- not sinful pleasures of course, but "streets of gold," and in some sense a chance to live our earthly lives all over again, unencumbered by the loss of friends or anything that stood in the way of our complete gratification on earth, including things
like work, deference, forgiveness and self-sacrifice. In heaven we'll be able to say what we couldn't say on earth: "It's a wonderful life." The heaven most people imagine allows everyone to be the director of the universe, to say "CUT! OK, take two!"
On the other hand, our focus is no more on things on the earth than those who long for "Earth II" in heaven. Our desire is to see that God's Will is done on earth as it is in heaven. It is a constant focus on heaven as the blueprint for the Christian Reconstruction of the earth.
