I was saved at seventeen years of age in an
old-fashioned tent meeting. As I knelt among other
folk at the rough-hewn altar, living faith gripped my
penitent soul and I leaped to my feet. A Christian
brother slapped my back in encouragement. I whirled
around and embraced him, but with such vigor that we
both fell in the sawdust rejoicing. The Spirit
witnessed to my spirit that I was a child of God
(Romans 8:16).

Once home, I retired to a lone cabin to continue
praying. All hell assailed my soul with lies and
discouragement. Finally, I fell asleep on my knees,
awakening in the early morning with victory in my soul.
That was forty-nine years ago. “How we praise God,
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms
because we belong to Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3 NLT).

There’s a real sense in which we have a heaven on
earth.. The previous Scripture talks about “the
heavenly realms because we belong to Christ.” But
let’s face it. Our feet are very much planted on
solid earth. Tomorrow morning we’ve got tough hills
to climb, tough bills to pay, and tough pills to
swallow. That’s reality, and it isn’t heaven by a
long shot. But Paul won’t let us off so easily. He
tells us to deliberately fix our focus on those
“blessings in Christ” up there.

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ,
set your sights on the reality of heaven, where Christ
sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and
power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think
only about things down here on earth. For you died
when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with
Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1-2 NLT).

“Things above” must surely include angels since
they’re such a fixture in the heavenly landscape. Our
hearts are to be set in that direction, and so are our
minds. That doesn’t leave much of us to get engrossed
in matters here on earth, does it? The Lord knows
there’s only one who can truly meet our every need
down here, and it’s the One who is worshipped day and
night by angels. Our marriages, our children, our
friends, our careers, our hobbies, our weekends, our
retirements—none of that will meet our deepest needs
that are such a reality in our life. Only Christ can
meet them, and his reality is a place at the throne of
his Father, where he prays for us and prepares a home
for us in the sight of angels.

Paul knows what aching disappointments we’ll
experience if our affections aren’t up there with
Christ. That’s why he wants us to make sure we’re
looking into heaven for fulfillment. And the harder
you struggle down here, and the older you get, the
more your heart begins to think about what it’s like
up there.


Erwin Bourne
<Outreach_amazon@yahoo.com>