How often do you spend time to imagine what it would be like when you go home to heaven and be with your Father and your brother Jesus forever?
Do you think we all will see the same heaven? What you imagine heaven will be like does it look like what the book of Revelations describes it will be?
Revelations 21 it tells of a city with walls made of precious stones, 12 gates made of pearl, street of transparent gold, where God and Jesus is it’s temple, and their glory is our everlasting light, where the water of life flows from under their throne and the tree of life bearing its fruit for us. And the greatest of all being in the everlasting love of God forever.
Setting our mind on things in heaven is something Paul teaches we should do.
Colossians 3: 1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
When your heart’s desire is to be with God forever it makes you want to know how to love God which Jesus teaches is to obey his Father’s will and that is to obey his teachings and commandments.
You may have experienced this feeling of desiring something that made your heart yearn to have. I know this is true when falling in love with someone. You find yourself not able to get that person out of your mind and you do all that you can to please them.
When someone longs to be with God it is not physically by our flesh it is by our spirit because God is Spirit. It is an eternal desire to be with God the Father of our spirit. Making us no longer think of earthly things, but on spiritual truth.
Colossians 3: 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
When our hope is being with our Father we believe it is through his Son’s death for our sins making our life hidden in Christ death and in his resurrection believing we will be like him transformed into a new glorified body when he returns to take us home.
Paul teaches how to recognize when we are clinging on to our earthly nature which we need to put to death or suffer God’s wrath.
Colossians 3: 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
When we abuse what God has given to us to enjoy on earth from how he designed them to be enjoyed we make them our idols. They become things that we worship more than obeying God’s will for them.
To keep from God’s wrath, we must overcome our earthly nature to give in because of our lack of self-control and help each other from making things God gave to us to enjoy on earth from becoming our idols.
Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7 how marriage partners marital duty keep Satan from tempting them from becoming sexually immoral, from impure thoughts and to lust because of their lack of control.
Paul teaches that we need to learn how to be content and to be thankful in all situations because this is God’s will for us and to obey Jesus’ teaching to love others as he has loved us. By doing this we will overcome evil desires.
Jesus teaches when we make heaven our greatest treasure we will give all we have to gain it making us overcome earthly greed.
Colossians 3: 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
When you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you know you will have eternal life with your Father. This hope in Jesus makes you reborn in God, it transforms you, you become a new creation in Christ. The old are gone and the new has come.
You see this transformation because you no longer live with anger, rage, malice, and slander and your speech no longer includes filthy language.
Colossians 3: 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
God never lies so like our creator Jesus we who are reborn in Christ do not lie but always speak what is true to God with his wisdom.
A lie is also when we tell someone what is not true to God, things not found in Scripture. That is why Paul teaches we should never go beyond what is written in Scripture. It is a lie when we add or take away from God’s written word. Revelations 21: 8 warns that all liars will not be with God. Be careful with what you say is God’s will and practice what James said we should do be quick to listen and slow to speak and what Paul said to capture every thought and make it obedient to Christ.
Colossians 3: 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
As citizens of heaven there is no prejudice, caste system or merit system. We all are loved the same in Christ. There is no favoritism with God, we all are loved as his children as one family in Jesus. God will not recognize us by our denomination, church we attend or pastor we follow God will only see his Son’s faithful disciples who obeyed his Father’s will they are the ones God will see as his kingdom children.
Colossians 3: 12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
When you love God with all your heart and want to be with him forever you are clothed with Holy Spirit being reborn in Christ bearing the fruit of the spirit.
Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
1 Corinthians 13 Paul teaches that love is keeping no records of wrong. Holding on to grievance you have against someone is not loving in Christ. Jesus wants us to forgive them because he has forgiven us for our sins. Our forgiveness came at a great cost to God when he gave his Son to suffer for the penalty of our sins covering it with his blood forever. Unforgiveness is something Jesus said his Father will not forgive and will keep you from being perfectly united as the body of Christ.
Let us take some time from all the world’s distraction and set our heart and mind on things in heaven so our heart continues to transform to be like our Lord Jesus.
Your brother in Christ, Glenn.