Hole in Your SoulSample

Heaven On Earth

Bringing it all together - what are we to do when the world marks us in a way we know isn’t God’s best for us?

Those marks remind us of how fallen the world is. As we talked about yesterday – we can’t bury ourselves in the world and live distracted from heaven and the salvation we are called to live out, but we also can’t deep dive so thoroughly into the spiritual that we don’t reach those around us.

Taking it back to my analogy on day one, as I looked at my nails that morning, admiring how clean they were after half an hour of swimming, I thought to myself, ‘I wonder how long this will last? Certainly not until my next weekly swim...’
But what if I were, metaphorically, to have a soak in the bath later this week... what if instead of the quickest of quick morning showers, I took a moment longer each day... giving the cleansing soap a bit more time to leave its fragrance on my skin.

What if, instead of being downcast about the marks the world is leaving on my skin, I use these moments of wholeness, these moments in His presence to mark the world around me with Heaven? Just as the present leaves its mark on us as we go about our lives, the eternity in us can leave a scent of Heaven on those around us.

I want to be someone who soaks in the heavenly presence of Jesus but doesn’t just stay there. I want to be someone who is in the world but not marked and marred by it. So, as I step into this next week, I’m challenging myself. To take my moments of soaking to ask Jesus to clean my soul and fill it again. Not filling it as one fills a cup. Full for a moment, a Sunday service or satisfying prayer time, then emptying through the week. But filling like a drainpipe. Filling me so that the moment I step from my Bible time, His word comes flowing out through me into the world I’m stepping into. So that whether I soak in His presence for a minute or an hour, my life will drip with the scent of eternity afterward. Hearts fixed on heaven, hands and feet actioning the eternity-giving Gospel on earth.

Friends, it is possible to live in the moment and to yearn for Heaven at the same time. Let those moments with Him fragrance your life this week. My prayer is that as you become more like Him by spending time in His presence and hearing His voice, you will be less stained by the broken world that surrounds you, but more ready than ever to go into it and plunder souls from hell to populate heaven.

That hole in your soul. It’s not a burden to bear or a call to hide yourself away until He calls you home. It’s your greatest invitation to go. To invite others home with you.

Questions

1. Reading today’s verses think over where in your life you can set your eyes on the things above.
2. As Paul encouraged the Thessalonians to put their energy into their daily work to support themselves and to help and inspire those around them, what areas is the Holy Spirit encouraging you not to tire in? Are there areas you could step out to take the Gospel to a hurting world?
3. As you’ve thought over having hearts fixed on heaven and hands and feet actioning the Gospel, take a moment to thank God for the beauty of salvation. To rest in the gift He has given you, soak in the scent of Heaven, ready to go out into the world, refreshed.