Heaven Came Down! Part 3

Do you ever wonder why God does what He does? 

 

Welcome to the planet earth. For some reason, God chose to give us birth on this planet instead of ushering our existence directly into heaven. Seems to me that going directly to heaven would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble. Oh well, God didn’t ask my opinion. His eternal plan is set and part of His purpose was for each of us to live our allotted time upon this earth. We are here Lord. Help us on this sacred ambassadorship upon this planet to glorify You and enjoy You forever. 

 

I guess this earthly journey is simply another reason to trust that God has a plan. He always has a plan and a purpose. Therefore, the righteous shall live by their faith. 

 

Part of His plan to bring Glory to Himself was to allow sin to break up the party way back in Eden. Counter-intuitive, to say the least, that allowing sin into the world would bring God glory. Sin entered the world and since then, things seem to go from bad to worst. But part of God’s plan could be explained with the word contrast. For example, where sin abounds, grace abounds more. The depth of sin gives us a contrasting view of the amazing grace and mercy of our loving and gracious father. Praise God for His grace toward us sinners. 

 

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins … But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ. 

 

There is another contrast in the preceding passage from Ephesians 1; dead and alive. We are born of this world into a perpetual state of deadness. But God, being rich in mercy, saves us from our deadness, brings us to life and places us into a perpetual state of abundant life. That’s an extreme contrast. The life He gives us is not a meager existence. It is a heavenly life. For now, we still walk on the dirt of this world but while here, our souls intermingle with all the blessings of the heavenly places in Christ.  

 

While living on this earth, we tend to have a horizontal, telescope-like focus, lacking in peripheral vision and rarely looking upwards. Depending on which way we look, our telescope-like vision reveals the good things we have on this earth. It’s not all evil and bad down here. Sometimes we look to the right and see the love, loyalty and security of family and friends; the simple joy of a new baby boy or girl; the laughter of children; the warmth of the sunshine on a lovely and delightful day; the majestic view of snow capped mountains over the cascading beauty of a wintery wonderland; or maybe the enlightenment of a good book, read before a warm fireplace on a cold and blustery day. 

 

(Note: Right and left are used in simple, interchangeable terms and have no meaning related to politics or any other ideology). 

 

In this world, when we look and focus one way, we see, hear and feel some of the simple and beautiful aspects of our worldly existence. Oh, but when we look the other way and turn our heads 90 degrees and fix our eyes to the left, the landscape is much different. We see corruption; we see evil men engaged in evil acts injuring innocent people; we see abuse, abortion, rape and murder; we see greed, deceit, deception and arrogance; we witness lying, criticism, accusations, and heartache. 

 

Unfortunately, we can’t keep our head cocked to the right continuously and see only the good. The corruption of this world and of our flesh keeps turning our attention toward the pain we see and personally experience ourselves in this world. We can’t avoid it. The view to the left constantly attacks our tranquil views of goodness on the right and engages our minds and hearts in the crushing emotions of sin and heartache. 

 

This is our horizontal life. This is life on earth. This is our 360-degree horizontal view of our physical surroundings. Whether we look to the right, the left, behind us or before us, we have a mixture of good and evil, happiness and sadness, kindness and evil, victory and defeat. This is the life we see with our physical eyes, feel with our flesh and touch with our human hands. 

 

The horizontal view of life on this earth, with human goodness and human evil combined, is all the unbeliever has to go on. That’s it. No wonder there’s so much disillusionment.  

 

But something quite wonderful happened when Jesus saved you. He opened your eyes upward. You still have a 360-degree horizontal view of this world, but you can now look upward and see beyond the immediate experiences of this world. You can now see, feel, hear and even touch the grace and glory of heaven. And what’s even better than just knowing it is up there and having thoughts of being there someday … is that heaven has come down to you with grace and glory, blessings and mercies, love and faith. In Jesus, the very articles of heaven have come down to dwell within us, His beloved children. 

 

With this context, read this passage from Ephesians 1-3 with a whole new vision and understanding of the vastness of God’s blessings upon your life. Even now, while you live in this flesh and upon this earth, the blessings of heaven are with you. 

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as … 

 

• He chose us in Him … that we should be holy and blameless 

 

• In love, He predestined us to adoption … according to the kind intention of His will 

 

• In Him, we have redemption through His blood 

 

• According to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. 

 

• In Him also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose. 

 

• In Him, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise 

 

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. 

 

We drip with the dew of heaven – your mercies are new every morning! 

 

We are drenched from the showers of heaven. … We enjoy every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. 

 

A river of blessings originates from the throne of heaven and flows into our hearts. All my springs of joy are in you, Psalms 87.7. 

 

Father, we long for the peace, joy and happiness of heaven: eternal bliss in the presence of God. We long for it but also thank you that for now, you have given us much. You have actually lavished us with the presence of heaven … but it is often difficult to feel it. Our faith is weak; help our faith. Our remembrance of You and your constant presence is often forgotten; help our minds to remember You. Our Vision of heaven is dim; give us eyes to look up and see Your glory shining upon us. Father, remind us of the words of Jesus; In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.

Amen!