Joni and Friends Daily Devotional 6 October 2021, Wednesday Message
Topic: Heaven in the Here and Now
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Today’s Scripture: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.”- Hebrews 12:22-23
Message: Do you notice anything odd about that verse? It’s the verb tense. The writer of Hebrews says we “have already come” to heaven. Resurrection promises are never written for the far and distant future but rather for the here and now.
God wants us to have a present-tense excitement, a right-around-the-corner anticipation of heaven. He wants us to believe that we have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem. He wants us to realize that we are already seated with Christ in heavenly places, “having our conversation in heaven.” As far as God is concerned, the coming of the Lord is at hand, ready to explode on the world’s stage at any moment.
The resurrection throbs with present-tense excitement when we learn to invest our days in eternity. When we sit close to self-scrutiny, when we examine our motives, words, and actions to make certain we are building for eternal glory, then heaven will seem as close as a heartbeat. The future, the distant, and the vague will appear as the present, the near, and the real. The kingdom of God is within you, Jesus said, and it whets our appetite for kingdom fulfillment at any day, any moment.
A lively hope of heaven will bring forward the things that most believers call invisible and distant. Such a hope will disclose to you the heavenly mansions, the happy courts, the adoring multitudes. It opens your ears to hear heavenly melodies, to catch the very words of angels’ anthems.
Lord, help me to see heaven so that I might live today for eternal glory.
Joni and Friends Daily Devotional 6 October 2021 was taken from Diamonds in the Dust – By Joni Eareckson Tada
