I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son — it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.
~ CS Lewis, from The Weight of Glory
As I looked, thrones were placed, and The Ancient of Days took His seat; His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before Him; a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened…. “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man, and He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory and a Kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. “As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me. I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the Kingdom and possess the Kingdom forever, forever and ever.’
~ A Taste of The Ages to Come, in Daniel 7
Oh beloved, it is true.
We who have surrendered to the Love of G_d, in His Son The L_RD Jesus Christ, have entered into Something that will never end. And, it is so important for us to know this reality – lest we look back over our shoulder and think that maybe we should be returning to the lowlands of self.
This same Jesus spoke of The Kingdom of G_d (and its synonym, The Kingdom of Heaven [for where He is, is Heaven itself]) over 120 times in the four Gospels. It was the central theme of Jesus’ teaching. He was speaking about a real thing – an actual Kingdom, with an economy, with an army, with a purpose, with a realm, and with a very simple set of laws.
In Romans 14, the Apostle Paul gives us the simplest (and thus profound) definition of the Kingdom of G_d. First, he tells us what it is not: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking.” This is not a place based on a constitution, with an outline of rules regarding our behaviors. We have had to have these things in the kingdoms in which we now reside, as a proxy for The One Who is the Source of all Authority and Power.
Then, Paul tells us what the Kingdom is: “but [the Kingdom of God is] righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” The righteousness of The Kingdom flows from The One called “The Righteous One.” The peace of this Kingdom is Jesus, for He Himself is our Peace. And the joy of the Kingdom is that diamond hard strength that comes from Living in deep communion with The King. Further, all of the above is under the banner of His Unfailing Love – which is the substance of Who He is. And so, said even more simply: The Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus. It is boundless across eternity: and, as the ancient creeds of the Church intimate, an astounding destiny of Eternal Life in A Kingdom that will have no end.
Can we see it?
Listen as well.
We, each of us, has begun to live this eternal Life, right now. However, we are still but ambassadors to another kingdom – a domain of darkness and death, and decay. We are on mission, fulfilling His Great Commission to share the reality of what Life in Christ truly is: It is being reborn into the very family of G_d, and to be part of something that will make the sufferings of this present darkness seem vanishingly small when seen in the context of an Eternity truly Alive, and Free, and Whole with Him.
Some of the writers of Scripture have seen it (or at least that part of it that they could begin to grasp). John, the beloved disciple, saw much of it, and worked to describe it in the book of Revelation. The Apostle Paul had an experience where he actually ascended to the highest realms of the Kingdom, and saw things that language fell short of describing. And, as we see in the passage above, the prophet Daniel, had incredible visions of the Kingdom that has now already begun, but that will expand in influence across the abysmal oceans of eternity.
And… we are part of this. We are to be the rulers of the Ages to Come. We will, by virtue of the fact that G_d has bought us out of the kingdom of darkness, and adopted us into the Kingdom of His Beloved Son, Live forever as beings who have been made into the Very Image of our Triune creator!
Once we begin to see the reality of our salvation, it should cause us to come to some sort of a complete stop, with our jaw dropped open. We, who have been living in dark and fetid cosmotic system; just trying to survive, are now royalty far beyond any royalty this world has ever seen. We are to participate in the divine nature of our Creator – forever!
However, after we recover from the blow this realization brings, we come to see that there is only one thing we truly want to do. We want to praise the One who set us free. We want to live in intimate communion with Him, as He prepares us for joy well beyond our imaginations. And then, we want to go out in praise and make Our Deliverer famous across all of Creation.
So, do you feel a bit worn out by the world you now inhabit? If you know Him, you may simply need to know something: You are no longer a resident of the falling dark of this world. You, beloved reader, are a citizen of Heaven. You, my brother or sister in Christ, are headed Home to The Father’s House where we will never experience loss or fear or pain or doubt – ever again. You (and this fool of a writer) are being made into what we were ever Designed to be: full beyond measure, Loved beyond your wildest imaginations, and Free in Him – forever.
Tonight is your night. Time to realize what you are a part of. And then, as you do, allow that praise to come pouring out of you.
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat — the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
~ CS Lewis, from The Weight of Glory
