Life After Heaven预览

A Bargain

Is there a cost to living to help bring heaven to earth? I’ve done a lot of thinking about the scriptures that address the cost of discipleship. Yes, there’s a cost to all this—and a big one. Look at Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels. Again and again he talks about dying so we can live. There’s nothing costlier than dying. I know. And it’s appropriate to talk about cost.

So, what will this cost?

Everything.

My advantage is that I’m already playing with house money. I’m living on borrowed time. Heaven’s dime. Heaven’s time. I’ve died, for heaven’s sake. I’ve been there and back again. Everything has a totally different meaning for me now. And I would trade everything—everything!—in an instant to return to heaven.

Do we all need to have a near-death experience to overcome the fear of giving God the totality of our lives, time, and resources? To give him our fears of loss? of suffering? of death? To say to him that we are truly his, not our own, and that he can do with us as he sees fit?

The answer is no.

He wants us to live in his presence now. In this life. In whatever place we live, whatever activities fill our lives.

My encouragement is this: Whatever the cost will be for you to live this way, it’s worth it. It’s why my death is worth living for. To teach that the kingdom of heaven is much closer than we think, much closer than we’ve been led to believe. To teach that we live in a diluted world, and it’s the Father’s heart—his intimate desire—that we live in a present that is rich and potent with his presence. Undiluted.

God’s surprising invitation to bring heaven to earth is waiting all around us, ready to break into our bland reality with power and clarity. It’s there, everywhere, just as his loving presence is. I ache for you to see it and feel it, for you to gain a taste of the glorious reality that awaits you whenever you take your last breath and step into That Place and walk with Jesus yourself. An encounter with heaven changes lives. I am living proof.

What are you willing to do differently, at whatever cost, to see that God’s will is done in your life here on earth?

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