Heaven In Us Now

June 20th, 2019 § 1

Man’s heart yearns for the new world God has given in Christ. On earth as it is in Heaven was the Master’s prayer for us. Man feels the longing of the distant memory of Eden long, long ago, still in our DNA somehow. Jesus is the Door to that new world now for all who will believe and walk through that Door. The Cherubim have stepped aside by the decree of God and we may now freely partake of the Tree of Life in a new place even better than Eden was. For we have died and our life is now hidden with Christ in God Himself forever. Behold the Kingdom of Heaven is within you now!

Do you see how this “message of grace” is so much more than just believing that God is not counting our sins against us, as great as that is? The primary message of Jesus and the apostles was the good news of the Kingdom of God. The main message was that God was bringing Heaven to earth for man to enjoy in his innermost being. No matter what this world throws at you, within you is Heaven. No weapon formed against you will prosper.

God with us always. No matter what. Blue skies are within you though the dark clouds rage around you on this earth. He prepares a table for you in the midst of your enemies. For the Kingdom of God is within you now and you rest in His righteousness, His peace and His joy through His gift of His Spirit. His love fills us by that same Spirit.

He wants us to have life and life more abundantly now on earth through our union with Him. He wants us to know that we need not ever thirst again or hunger again for spiritual drink or spiritual food. He wants us to know what He accomplished for us is real and it is for now and not just when our bodies die. If it were not so, He said He would have told us. Believe only and we will see the glory of God now.

Lazarus was dead and Jesus came four days after he had died and been buried to see Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ sisters.

Martha told Jesus that she knew that her brother would live again one day in the future at the resurrection of the dead. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me though he be dead shall live again. Do you believe this?”

Martha saw the resurrection as a future event where all that she desired from God would be experienced. Jesus showed her how she is not to look at the resurrection as merely a future event but rather a present reality in a person. That person being the Christ.

This whole scene with Jesus, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, though an actual historic event, is a metaphor to teach us that what Jesus came to accomplish for us is not something we must wait to experience as an event at the end of the world. We are not to wait for an event called the resurrection to experience Heaven. Jesus wants us to see that “He is the resurrection!” Jesus said that in Him we have already passed from death and into life!

The revelation from this metaphor is that Heaven is here now for us because Jesus is our resurrection and joined to Him we have been raised from the dead already and have already ascended to sit with Him in Heaven. He is the resurrection and the life for us now!

Do you believe this?

And Jesus told them to remove the stone and He called out, “Lazarus! Come forth!” and he who was dead came forth alive again!

Jesus is the resurrection and He calls us to come forth from the old world of death and walk into His new world of life! Come forth believer! Allow the Spirit to renew your mind and go through the Door and behold Heaven with your own eyes. Experience by faith Heaven in you now. Jesus is the resurrection and life has come to us through Him now. Abundant life.

Like Jacob, we must “awaken” and see the Gate of Heaven and the Ladder that has joined Heaven and Earth! Jacob said, “This is the Gate of Heaven! This is the House of God! God is in this place and I knew it not!” Jesus is the Gate of Heaven and He is the true House of God. Jesus is the Ladder who joins Heaven to earth. He did it!

The resurrection is not just a future event, it is a present reality in the person of Jesus. Did He not say that if we would only believe we would see the glory of God?

This is an awesome metaphor. Jesus is clearly saying to Martha that there is no time in Him. We need not wait for the passage of time to experience what He accomplished for us outside of time. He offered Himself up by the eternal Spirit. By one sacrifice He has taken away all sin for all men “for all time.” Jesus is the resurrection and the life now and forever! We can now go boldly beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies, into Heaven itself, the scriptures teach.

Martha thought she must wait for time to pass before she would see Heaven’s power and glory but Jesus said to her that what she was waiting for was actually standing right in front of her. She was going to count the days until the final day of resurrection but Jesus says to her, “I am the resurrection!”

James Barron