Don't Forget Heaven
Don’t Forget the Things Above!
Paul said to the Colossians, “Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above not on earthly things.” (3:1-2)
The heavens or the things above have always been for me a source of inspiration and marvel. I went on a camping trip in Northern Quebec where no man-made lights exist. At night, when the sun shied away, the stars came out to play.
It was sheer joy to see stars flickering praises to their creator and ours. The skies bejeweled. The vastness of God! The smallness of me. The One who creates and redeems from love. The heavens are truly his throne and the earth his footstool.
Since then, as I have walked with Christ in the midst of troubled and untroubled times. I have been drawn again and again to reflect on things above. The abode of the Almighty. And today we need it more than the we need the news
When we set our minds and hearts on things above God impacts our world through us. We see how close heaven and earth are. We see how Jesus brought heaven to earth and asked us to continue in prayer. His heavenly love for his Father and the Holy Spirit is the same love he loved us with on earth. A love that transforms calling us to align with heaven while planted on earth.
Seeking first the things above is to seek to:
Love God and to love as God loves
Discover what pleases the Lord and to do it with holy ambition
Pray for heaven’s reality to become the reality on earth
Serve our neighbors, near and far as Christ would serve them if he were in our place
You have to wonder about talk of heaven right now when so much preoccupies our minds and hearts of things below. The saying, he’s so heavenly minded he’s not earthly good couldn’t be more wrong. Unless we are so heavenly minded we are no earthly good!
The truth is, more is said about heaven coming to us than us going to heaven. Truth is: where two or three are gathered, heaven is right there. And so it is when the poor are fed, the sick are healed, the needy are served in Christ’s name. Heaven rushes down. When we love our enemies, the kingdom of the heaven is at hand. When we own our brokenness, confess it, receive forgiveness, reconcile to God and each other, our soul is filled with heaven.
So dwell on these things of heaven: truth, honor, justice, purity, loveliness, moral excellence, and anything or anyone worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8-9). Beats dwelling on the News, hands down. This week I encourage you to live a life of joy and peace in the midst of a dying world. We can do what you can to participate with what God is doing here on earth as in heaven.