Heaven on Earth

What if you could have a little heaven on earth?

Life would be different, better. No arguing with your teenagers. No misunderstandings with your partner. No miscommunications at work, church, home, or elsewhere. Store clerks would be cheerful all year, especially at Christmas. No one would forget to say hi to you. Your boss would praise you. Your spouse would keep you in mind when deciding where to have dinner and what movie to see.

But at times life is more complicated than easy. Today we are more harried and hurried than ever before. And too often we’re swept along by popular opinion and conventional wisdom regarding what is important.

Culture encompasses all that we do; it also includes the how and why of our decisions. Culture is a way of living, a way of thinking, which may be good or bad. For most of us, much of the time, life is a mixture. Some days we live well, others we settle for mediocrity.

We build what we want to live in and be a part of. Our relationships with others bear a striking resemblance to us. We imprint our likeness on all we touch. And again, that can be bad or good.

Just as a physical structure bears the image of its architect, a society, a church, or a family reflects the image of its members.

But how do we become who and what we are? Too often we draw our identity and values from the world around us. We are influenced rather than influencing others. But that’s not what God intends.

He expects us to emigrate into the culture of his kingdom. We are to leave what we’ve known so we can learn what we don’t know so we can become what we aren’t.

When we immigrate into God’s way of thinking and living—his culture—we change. We don’t lose our individuality, our personality, but rather we gain our identity. When we’re born-again we become citizens of heaven, foreigners to the world. We think and act less and less like we once did and more like God does.

When we change we change others. Our sphere of influence expands and enlarges as we do in order to embrace new people and new ideas. It’s not that we become tolerant or politically correct in our views. We should never lose our sense of direction, of right and wrong. But we ought to be willing to examine what we think we know and be willing to learn what we thought we did.

The problem is we want to live in communities that are kind, but we don’t always want to be kind. We want others to love us, even on our worst days, but we aren’t always quick to love others on their best days. We all have ideas of how others should act, but we generally aren’t nearly as interested in hearing what others might say regarding our behavior.

If we want to be part of a friendly church, we ought to befriend those who have no friends. It’s not enough to love those who love us. We need to love the unlovely. After all, that’s what God did when he saved us.

To have a little bit of heaven on earth, we must act like what we are—citizens of another culture. We should be inclusive not exclusive. Generous not stingy. Compassionate not cruel. Forgiving not judgmental. We should serve others and not ourselves.

What would life be like if you could offer someone a little heaven on earth?


Want to learn more? Visit http://praisechapelkingman.podblaze.com to hear a sermon by Senior Pastor Howard Pennington or any of our pastors or guest speakers.