Monday, October 15, 2007
Two Realms
I love Velvet Elvis. It has revealed so much to me and the reason it has taking me so long to read is because I read a bit and then think and meditate on it. So yesterday in church (yea, when I was meant to be listening) I read this bit.....Two Realms.
Now if there is a life of heaven, and we can choose it, then there's also another way. A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live. The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be. We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth.
For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one because he understood that the life beyond this one is a continuation of the kinds of choices we maker here and now.
For Jesus, the question wasn't, how do I get into heaven? but how do I bring heaven here?
The question wasn't, how do I get in there? But how do I get there, here?
True spirituality then is not about escaping this world to some other place where we will be forever. A Christian is not someone who expects to spend forever in heaven there. A Christian is someone who anticipates spending forever here, in a new heaven that comes to earth.
The goal isn't escaping this world but making this world the kind of place God can come to. And God is remaking us into the kind of people who can do this kind of work. pg 148-149 (selected parts)
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ME again: So what I think it boils down to is heaven VS hell on earth. Everyday we have the choice as to whether we decide to bring heaven to earth or hell.
Everyday.
The simple things. Such as when your friends are gossiping about someone you but in and say something really positive about them. I can choose to obey my parents rather than disobey etc. Its the small and the big choices that help to advance heaven on earth rather than hell.
I think I need to start choosing to advance heaven with the small things now, so that later in life I can handle and recongise the big.
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T'shuva
The remaking of this world ia why Jesus' first messages began with 'T'shuva, for the kingdom has come near.'
The Hebrew word t'shuva means "to return". return to the people we were originally created to be. The people God is remaking us into.
God makes us in his image. We reflect the beauty and creativity and wonder of the God who made us. And Jesus calls us to return to our true selves. The pure, whole people God originally intended us to be, before we veered off course.
Somewhere in you is whom you were made to be.
We need you to be you.
We don't need a second anybody. We need the first you.
The problem is that the image of God is deeply scarred in each of us, and we lose trust in God's version of our story. We achieve and we push and we shop and we work out and we accomplish great things, longing to repair the image. Longing to find an identity that feels right.
Longing to be comforatable in our own skin.
But the thing we are searching for is not somewhere else. It is right here. And we can only find it when we give up the search, when we surrender, when we trust. Trust that God is already putting us back together.
Trust that through dying to the old, the new can give birth.
Trust that Jesus can repair the scarred and broken image.
It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything or achieve anything or accomplish one more thing. That exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven and trhere is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance.
God knew exactly what he was doing when he made you. There are no accidents. We need you to embrace your true identity, who you are in Christ, letting this new awareness transform your life.
That is what Jesus had in mind.
That is what brings heaven to earth.
This is our invitation. To trust that we don't owe anything. To trust that something is already been done, something has been there all along.
To trust that grace pays the bill. pg150-152.
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This book is truely amazing and it feels like God makes me read it when he's trying to tell me something. I mean that last section is what I'm trying to deal with right now. It blows my mind.
You gotta read it. I'm considering buying this book for so many people for Christmas!
On 16:58, Rach J let go.
