If you have trusted in Christ as your Redeemer, your bodily resurrection is assured and you will live forever in God’s presence. But how is your anticipation of that future life to affect your life now? Paul says, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities 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” (Colossians 3:1-2).
How are we to take this scripture? How are we to fill our thoughts with anticipation of a perfect life in heaven when we have so many things to do, places to go, obligations to fulfill? Your life and ours are consumed with earthly concerns. What am I going to eat today? How am I going to pay all these bills? When am I going to get another raise? Who am I going to marry? How do I keep this marriage together? When are we going to have kids? Who’s watching the kids? What are they getting into, anyway?
Our minds are flooded with a million things at once, most of them about earthly things—college, marriage, raising a family, retirement. Yet Jesus said, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where they can be eaten by moths and get rusty…store your treasures in heaven…Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be…So I tell you, don’t worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes…Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern” (Matthew 6:19-21,25,32-33).
What does all that really mean? How do we live in anticipation of the resurrection and not make this life such a big priority?
I (Sean) remember how my thought process and entire life changed after meeting this stunning girl named Stephanie. Yes, I was struck by her beauty, but it was more than that. She was smart and funny and had a great personality. She and I liked a lot of the same things, and I wanted to be with her all the time. When I was at basketball practice I thought about her. When I was in school I thought about her. When I was at home I thought about her. I couldn’t get her out of my mind because she had made a place in my heart.
It seemed that every waking moment this woman captivated my thoughts. There was more to it than I could really understand. There was a mystery to this consuming passion of mine. I knew her and yet I didn’t, so I wanted to know her more. I wanted to know her on a level I had never really experienced with anyone else before. Because I was in love!
After Stephanie and I married, the love affair deepened. In fact, our togetherness created a home of our own for us. While marriage meant we could spend a lot of time together, I still had to be away at times. Stephanie didn’t like me being away. She became a little jealous when I was at work or at the seminary too long. At times I had to travel to a speaking engagement. Of course, I would e-mail her and call her. But it wasn’t the same. She missed me and wanted me home. And I liked it that she did. I missed her too. I missed that place of emotional security and relational intimacy that existed in my love life with the person of my dreams.
That is a small picture of what it means to set our “sights on the realities of heaven.” It’s not a matter of sitting around pining away and hoping for the day we’re dead and in heaven. It means our priorities, our interests, and our devotion are placed in another world with another person—Jesus. And when we get too focused on earthly things, he gets jealous.
The disciple James made it clear. He wrote, “If your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God. What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful?” (James 4:4-5). Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). And when we give our devotion, our undivided heart to earthly things, Jesus gets jealous.
Stephanie wanted me to think about her while I was away just like I wanted her to think about me. And if another woman captured my thoughts and heart, she would have been seriously offended—as she should have been. Isn’t it humbling to think that Jesus is jealous if our hearts and thoughts are on earthly things rather than on him and our home with him? He wants “heaven to fill our thoughts.” He wants us to keep him as our priority. He wants us to long for him as we long for our earthly lovers and our homes with them.
Living for our future homes with new bodies in the presence of Jesus isn’t a matter of just daydreaming day in and day out. It’s about what kind of treasures we are building and where our priorities are in this life. Paul talked about those whose “god is their appetite”—their earthly pleasures—“and all they think about is this life here on earth” (Philippians 3:19). But we who are spiritually resurrected in Christ are not about building earthly kingdoms and living our life for the pleasures this world can give. Rather, “we are citizens of heaven,” Paul says, “where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same mighty power that he will use to conquer everything, everywhere” (Philippians 3:20-21). Our focus on our future doesn’t take us out of this world; it simply keeps our attention where it belongs while we are here.
Jesus prayed for his disciples by saying to his Father, “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They are not part of this world any more than I am. Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth” (John 17:15-17). Living in this world with our hearts in the next does involve our being engaged in the business and activities going on around us. Yet the fact that our hearts are properly focused on the next enables us to be more effective in God’s business right here and now—living out his truth and building up his kingdom. C.S. Lewis said it well:
If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most about the next. The apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: Aim at earth and you will get neither.1
King David, who was a man after God’s own heart, ruled the nation of Israel well and accomplished much on earth. Though his heart was fixed on God, he still obeyed his commands concerning how to live his life on earth. In fact he paid all the more attention to living right on earth because his thoughts were on God. “I reflect at night on who you are, O LORD,” David said, “and I obey your law because of this” (Psalm 119:55).
Living in this world with our heart in the next doesn’t happen naturally. As we said, life with all its concerns tends to consume us. To “set your sights on the realities of heaven” and keep them there requires that we live by faith. “What is faith?” the writer of Hebrews asks. “It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see” (Hebrews 11:1). To maintain a kingdom of heaven mentality requires a “confident assurance” that God is in control and that his promises are real and will be fulfilled. When we have an intelligent faith that knows why we believe, we are confident God’s promises are true.
To live in this world with our heart in the next requires a faith that fixes our spiritual eyes on Jesus.
The saints of old had an intelligent faith that gave them confidence. “It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain…It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying…It was by faith that Noah built an ark to save his family…It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land…All these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed the promises of God” (Hebrews 11:4,5,7,8,13). These faithful followers of God lived in the world, but they were not of this world. “They were no more than foreigners and nomads here on earth…But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them” (Hebrews 11:13,16).
It is by an intelligent faith that we endure hardship, trials, and difficulties here on earth. It is by this kind of faith that we set our eyes and hearts on a future of joy after death. If you’ve lived very long, it’s clear to you that death puts a cold blanket on any plans for the future. You may enjoy a pet, like a dog or cat, but it dies. Its future is snuffed out and so is your joy. A grandmother or grandfather, a brother or sister, a husband or wife breathes their last and their future is no more. Joy is snatched from us. Death does that. It is only by an intelligent faith we have confident assurance that we can see a future after death. It is only by faith we can have joy in the face of tragedy or death. Because an intelligent faith is trusting what the eyes can’t see.
Max Lucado speaks of what faith sees in his book When God Whispers Your Name:
Eyes see the prowling lion. Faith sees Daniel’s angel.
Eyes see storms. Faith sees Noah’s rainbow.
Eyes see giants. Faith sees Canaan.
Your eyes see your faults. Your faith sees your Savior.
Your eyes see your guilt. Your faith sees his blood.
Your eyes see your grave. Your faith sees a city whose builder and maker is God.2
We are surrounded by a world that clamors for our attention and attempts to draw our hearts in its direction. It is a world of busyness that compels us to cope with life in all its difficulties and troubles. That is the world we see. Our task is to see yet another world invisible to the eye. It can only be seen by faith. The writer of Hebrews wraps up his great chapter that lists example after example of people who longed for another country and saw it by faith by saying:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish (Hebrews 12:1-2).
Deepening Our Longing for God
“Keeping our eyes on Jesus.” That’s the key. To live in this world with our heart in the next requires a faith that fixes our spiritual eyes on Jesus. He longs for us to long after him. He wants us to be homesick for him. He wants us to thirst after him. He wants us to be like King David who prayed, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him?” (Psalm 42:1-2). David goes on to pray, “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).
Take time to cultivate your longing and thirst for God and the home he is preparing for you. The more you spend time focused on him, the more life in this temporal world takes on an eternal perspective. The things that are real and lasting come into focus. When we keep our hearts in the next world, we can experience true peace when this earthly world all around us is in turmoil.
Pastor and theologian Calvin Miller captures the secret to the true peace we can have when we see God through the power of his Holy Spirit:
God becomes visible to those who look for him in the right place. Therefore, no eye—no literal eye—can see him! No ear can hear him! No mind can conceive him! He hides his vastness only in the deepest dimensions of our inner existence.
The world around us is the world of “outer” relationships. In such outer places we make friends, achieve success—get on in the world! In this busy, worried world we have appointments, face disappointments, and force our ego-driven souls to stab at achieving power. On the surface of our lives, things frenzied and dyspeptic dominate us. But in our hearts it is quite another matter.
First Corinthians 2:10 contains one little word that lunges at us with challenge: “But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (NIV).
Deep is the dwelling place of God. Deep is the character of the ocean. Hold the metaphor for a moment and savor its lesson ahead of time. For deep is where the noisy, trashy surface of the ocean gets quiet and serene. No sound breaks the awesome silence of the ocean’s heart. Most Christians, however, spend their lives being whipped tumultuously through the surface circumstances of their days. Their frothy lifestyles mark the surface nature of their lives. Yet those who plumb the deep things of God discover true peace for the first time.3
Take time out of your busy schedule to “plumb the deep things of God.” Spend time with his Word. Meditate on him and cultivate your longing for him. Let him know you hunger to know him more deeply than ever. See him by faith in your new home of the future. Praise him in advance for the new body he will give you because of his resurrection. As you do you will gain a new perspective on this life and the things that really matter.
Take a moment to carefully read and meditate on the words of the psalmist David. He saw God through his eyes of faith. He lived on earth but his heart was in another world. He said:
I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed
upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better to me than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will honor you as long as I live, lifting up
my hands to you in prayer.
You satisfy me more than the richest of foods.
I will praise you with songs of joy.
I lie awake thinking of you, meditating
on you through the night.
I think how much you have helped me; I sing
for joy in the shadow of your protecting wings.
I follow close behind you; your strong
right hand holds me securely (Psalm 63:2-8).
Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Yes, dear friends, we are already God’s children, and we can’t even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when he comes we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who believe this will keep themselves pure, just as Christ is pure (1 John 3:2-3).