Already and Not Yet – Living Between the Ages
Some of you will be looking at today's devotion and saying "day 40? I thought Lent was 40 days – but Easter is still a week away!?"
The truth is I miscalculated this completely when I planned this Wesley series for Lent. If you remove the Sundays from Lent, you get 40 days. But I kept them in, and so now I'm on day 40 ahead of schedule. Oops!
So we will be enjoying 47 days with the Wesleys, and we'll include Easter weekend in our journey, although technically those days don't form part of Lent.
Heaven Begins Now
I want to close our week talking about life after death and the end of all things by reminding us that God's kingdom is already here. It's not only when we die that we enter the kingdom of God. Heaven, in a sense, begins for us the moment we place our faith in Christ.
John Wesley said as much in a sermon called The Way to the Kingdom: "Holiness and happiness, joined in one, are sometimes styled, in the inspired writings, "the kingdom of God,"... and sometimes, "the kingdom of heaven." It is termed "the kingdom of God," because it is the immediate fruit of God's reigning in the soul. So soon as ever he takes unto himself his mighty power, and sets up his throne in our hearts, they are instantly filled with this "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." It is called "the kingdom of heaven" because it is (in a degree) heaven opened in the soul."
What a wonderful truth. This calls to mind the words of Jesus in Luke 17:20-21. The Pharisees ask Jesus about the kingdom of God, and he replies: "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."
Bringing Heaven to Earth
Yes, ultimately we look forward to heaven's reward, to the new heavens and the new earth and the redemption of all things. But we don't just wait for it passively. We live today with heaven in our hearts!
Do you remember that song we used to sing, "O-o-o-o-o, heaven is in my heart"? What Jesus offered was not just a utopia after death, but a transformed life on earth because heaven is in your heart. I mean, didn't He teach us to pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"?
So the question today is this: how are we bringing heaven to earth? If your faith is in Christ, and heaven is in your heart, how are you giving expression to that?
Wesley, if you'll remember from last week's devotions, did much good to try and tackle the systemic issues in his time. His attitude was not "the earth is going to hell, let me just huddle in my corner and wait for heaven". His attitude was "how can I create and build and affect change in society so that something of heaven comes to earth?"
I hope that this Lenten journey has imparted some of the Wesleys' optimism into your faith! Let's earnestly look forward to heaven's joys in the presence of God, and let's earnestly attempt to bring something of this heaven to earth while we are still here.
