Heaven part 2
If heaven is available to us right now--the days of heaven on earth, the mind of Christ--then we don't need to wait for it, and we don't need to try to earn it. Look at Matthew 4:17, "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The Kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of love. It is at hand. It is within our reach. And all we have to do in order to grab it--to lay hold of the gift that we've already been given, which is the good fight of faith--is to repent. Which, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view) doesn't mean what religious folk have made it out to mean. "Repent" in Matthew 4:17 is number 3340 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "to think differently or afterwards, that is, reconsider (morally to feel compunction)." Basically, we've been trying to conform to this world. Because we thought that was our best choice. Or, really, our only option. What we need to do in order to reach out and grab the Kingdom--to experience the days of heaven on earth--is think again. And the reason we CAN do that is because of the cross. The cross happened, and now we can think differently. The light of the world shined, and now we can see how things really are. We don't have to just take what the world gives us. We don't have to accept any old thing. We have a better option. A more excellent way. Repentance is not begging an angry god for mercy so that we don't get burned up for eternity. Repentance is letting the mind of Christ (that is already in us) BE in us. Thinking differently in light of something. It was dark... until God said, "Let there be light." Now it's not dark anymore. Sin abounded... before the cross. That was when, and where, and how, grace did much more abound. We were sinners... until we were saved by grace. Jesus took away the sin of the world. And, according to 1 John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Sin is not the issue. Jesus took away the sin of the world. Sin CONSCIOUSNESS is the issue. Thinking we're sinners when we're actually saints. We are the righteousness of God in Christ. As He is so are we in this world. And He is light. There is no darkness in Him at all. Which means there is no darkness in US at all. What we need is a shift in our mindsets in order to stop beating ourselves up over things from our past. What we need is put off the old man (that HE has already taken off of us) and put on the New Man (which HE has already put on us). What we need is to repent. To think differently in light of the cross. To see things for what they are now, instead of always thinking about what we have always thought they were. We've always thought about heaven as planet three miles south of Mars somewhere, right? But, in reality, heaven is inside of us. The Kingdom of love. It's in the heart. God's heart beating with love in our chests. The mind of Christ thinking the thoughts of God in our heads. Letting what's inside come out. By knowing and believing that it's in there. Living in heaven right now, and spreading it around wherever we are!