As we walk in this new life, He transforms us more and more closely into the person He created us to be, but ultimately we will be perfected. This is called glorification, and it happens when we die — or when He returns to make all things right again.
We’ve reached the end of our 8 week journey through the premises that – if you take them to heart – will fulfill the deepest cravings of your soul, and change your life forever. We’ve covered how…
You were created for beautiful things by a wholly good, wholly loving, all-powerful and all-holy God.
You are broken. We all are. We choose ourselves over others. Brokenness and sin stain every relationship in all of creation.
You can’t fix this yourself, no matter how many “good deeds” you do. We cannot relate to our own Creator because He is holy and we are not. Only God can fix this.
And God did. He entered into His own creation, in the flesh, coming to us because we could not come to Him. His perfect, sinless life on earth is what we call the incarnation.
Jesus Christ, both God and man, died to pay for our sins. To make us holy. To repair the relationship between sinful man and his holy God. This was the crucifixion.
Jesus did not stay dead. By His own infinite power He rose from the dead, as was witnessed in person by hundreds of people, many of whom ended up martyred for proclaiming that Jesus is indeed God. They died attesting to His resurrection.
Because of His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, our broken relationship with our Creator can be healed. We are literally born again to a new life empowered by His Spirit – and this life will last forever. This is called salvation, which also leads to a host of blessings.
And now we come to the end of the story – if a story that’s eternal can have an end. And since it can’t, maybe instead we will talk about what’s next.
Working toward perfect
Last week we talked about all the blessings of salvation, and one of them is sanctification, which is a fancy way of saying that when we become one of God’s children by believing in Jesus as Lord, He helps us become more like Him.
Which means, a brand new Christian may not look or act too much different than before he/she was saved.
But an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ will change you. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly by leaps and bounds. But change is inevitable, because when you acknowledge that someone else is Lord of your life, that is the pivot point where your life begins to align with the Creator who made you.
And as you align yourself with the teachings of the Bible, the rest of your life on earth will be a continuous upload of good replacing evil. Maybe sometimes in fits and starts, but that will be your trajectory. Why?
Because he’s preparing you to spend eternity with Him!
Remember, He is perfect. So another thing Jesus accomplished by dying and rising again was making it possible for you to be perfected (the word for that is “glorification”). That perfection will arrive when you die.
Or…
It is possible that your perfection may arrive before you die. Because the Bible tells us very clearly that at some point, Jesus will return to make all things right, and you may be alive when that happens. He is coming to restore everything to its original, beautiful state as it was before sin entered the world!
The book of Revelation as well as many of the Old Testament prophetic books also tell us this will be preceded by frightening times of judgment when the world will experience unimaginable turmoil.
It’s important to know, though, that the Bible says no one will know the day or hour when that starts happening, so ignore anyone who tells you they know. They don’t. (The Bible does give us some signs that indicate it’s getting closer. Are we seeing some of those signs now? Yes. A topic for another day.)
What we do know, for sure, is that we still live in a blessed time – a time when any man or woman can consider the premises we’ve laid out here, and choose to believe, to submit, to repent – and join God’s family, following Jesus as Lord.
But that time will come to an end. And then it will be too late. As we said elsewhere in this series, God will not force you into His presence. Hell is a place where there will be no presence of God whatsoever. A place turned over to the demons of hell, who will be suffering along with everyone else.
Because you don’t want to live in a world without God, whether you acknowledge Him or not. Everything good you have now is a gift from God. The God who made you and this world, the God who loves you, the God who made a way you could be perfected so that you could live with Him forever in a place so beautiful and perfect it will make this stunningly gorgeous world dim in comparison. He is beauty. He is love. He is perfection. He is holy. He is good. He is so many things we will have an eternity to enjoy.
And enjoy Him we will. Worshipping Him forever is not about sitting on a cloud with a harp, or sitting in an eternal church pew.
A good way to think about heaven
We might get a little better foretaste of heaven by thinking about all the best things in this life, in this world, as kind of the black-and-white version. When we live in His presence, everything now beautiful – our surroundings, our relationships, all that is good already – will unfold in the most beautiful full technicolor version. And even that imaginative exercise falls short, because we simply cannot imagine all that awaits us.
But we know it will be glorious, because God is that, too.
Again, the good news – remember, that is what “gospel” means – is that you can be confident that you will be there with Him forever. How confident? Well, the Bible promises us, over and over again, that once we belong to Him, we are His forever. Or as one of my favorite passages puts it:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39
Consider this a personal invitation, from me to you, to join the family of the One who created you.
It is what you were created for, by the Creator Himself.
It is what your soul craves.
Questions? Please email me at shespeakstruth@proton.me, anytime, and I will answer promptly.