Heaven Series--Surprise #2: Earth Was Intended To Be Our Heaven!
In an effort to avoid the expense of buying a new vehicle, I once bought an older van and replaced the engine. In my mind, this would be the next best thing to having a new van. My plan was working like a charm until the transmission starting slipping. Shortly after I replaced my transmission, the drive shaft literally fell off while I was driving down the highway. The problems cascaded into a series of minor and not so minor issues until I finally couldn’t afford my van anymore. I sold it for a fraction of what I had put into it just to stop the bleeding. Sometimes things don’t turn out according to our plans. That’s because, being human, our best intentions are often flawed.
We must be careful, however, not to superimpose this same limitation on God. Unlike us, God’s intentions are always perfect. So perfect that God Himself can’t even improve upon them. This is a very powerful principle. To observe just how powerful, take note of everything God has ever intended to do and you’ll discover a very significant pattern. When God intends to do something, one way or another, it always happens.
Take the subject matter at hand as an example. To discover what Heaven will be like, all we really have to do is take note of God’s original intentions. After God created the universe and everything in it, the Bible says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means everything was exactly how God intended it to be. Man was granted dominion over a perfect world. There was no death, no sickness, no sin and no struggle—just as God intended.
So, what would have happened had Adam and Eve never eaten the forbidding fruit? Presumably, mankind would have lived forever in an earthly paradise. Fruit and vegetable bearing plants would have thrived instead of weeds. Man would have leisurely enjoyed exercising dominion over God’s creation. The animal kingdom would have lived in submission to man as its caretaker, enjoying peace and harmony within itself. But sadly, man sinned, and paradise was lost forever. Or was it?
To you and me, intentions are just intentions. We set out with the best of them, but when things don’t work out, we simply change our plans (our intentions) and move on. Not so with God. God’s intentions are perfect, which means they can’t be improved upon, and thus they never have to be changed.
So, taking that logic into account, if Earth was intended to by our Heaven—if that was God’s original intent—shouldn’t we expect that Earth will end up being our Heaven? Exactly! The Bible begins with God creating Earth to be man’s eternal abode and the Bible ends with God returning to His original plan by creating a New Earth to be man’s eternal abode. The Bible ends where it began, with God coming back to His original plan!
The fall of man didn’t negate God’s original intentions; it just delayed them for a while. Right now, you and I live in a pause period, a period of redemption where God seeks to save those who are lost due to the fall of man. When redemptive history is complete, the moment the last of mankind has been resurrected and judged (Revelation 20:11-15), God will go back to His original plan! In fact, it’s in the very next verse that the Apostle John wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared” (Revelation 21:1).
The Apostle Peter put it this way, “But we are looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).
Several hundred years earlier, the great prophet Isaiah recorded God making this same promise: "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth …” (Isaiah 65:17). Despite the fall of man, God’s original plan will be fulfilled!
None of this should be a surprise to us. Jesus, in the most famous sermon ever delivered, The Sermon on the Mount, promised, “The meek … shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Notice, according to Jesus, our eternal inheritance won’t be a harp and a cloud; it won’t be an ethereal abode. It will be Earth itself!
So, regardless of what you’ve heard about Heaven, God’s clear promise to you is that one day the “New Earth” will be your Heaven!!
Unchanging God
“He is immutable, which means that He has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure. To change he would need to go from better to worse or from worse to better. He cannot do either, for being perfect He cannot become more perfect, and if He were to become less perfect, He would be less than God.”
The late Dr. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) was well known in evangelical circles both for his long and fruitful editorship of the Alliance Witness as well as his pastorate of one of the largest Alliance churches in the Chicago area. He came to be known as the Prophet of Today because of his penetrating books on the deeper spiritual life.
Of course, we are just the opposite. While God is holy, we are sinners. While God is perfect, we are throughly flawed. Given these facts, what should a relationship between God and man be about? It must be about change--our change. In fact, we should expect that every genuine encounter with God must involve a transformation on our part. It should be the common thread in all of our prayers.
Dr. Mitchell Dillon, founder of Illustration Exchange
Pray in the Name and Power of Christ
"A person cannot always speak in the name of another; cannot do it at all unless he has received an authorization so to do. Then he stands as that person’s deputy; stands in his place; speaks in his name. I am sure that nine out of ten of the prayers of Christians are not offered in the name of Christ, and could not be. It would be a sin against Christ for such prayers to be supposed to be the prayers of Christ. ... But when we talk of the Spirit of God, and we dare ask in the name and use the seal of Christ, to set his signature at the bottom of our petition, then, brethren, depend upon it. Christ will do it." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Several times a week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt steps to the podium to relay to an awaiting press pool the mind and intentions of the president, Donald J. Trump. She does so as all of her predecessors have done. For example: Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre, on behalf of President Joe Biden; Dana Perino and Ari Fleisher on behalf of President George W. Bush; George Stephanopoulos on behalf of President Bill Clinton; Jim Brady on behalf of Ronald Reagan; Jody Powell on behalf of Presdient Jimmy Carter; and so on.
When they speak from that podium, they dare not speak their own mind. They are conveying policy, they are conveying presidential action, they are conveying administrative intent. To speak their own mind, heart, or opinion would be to misprepresent the office of the presidency, and would be a gross violation of their calling and position.
Likewise, when we pray in the name of Jesus, we are proclaiming that we are praying on His behalf of His authority.
But are we?!
- - Authorization Requirement: Speaking or acting for another requires authorization. This authorization allows one to represent the other person. As believers, we are "authorized" to speak in Jesus' name, in so much as we do not speak amiss. "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it" (John 14:14, ESV).
- - Praying "In the Name of Christ": Many Christian prayers are not offered "in the name of Christ". Praying in Jesus' name signifies approaching God based on Christ's merit, not one's own, and seeking to please Him and glorify the Father. "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13, ESV).
- - Misunderstanding "In Jesus' Name": Adding "in Jesus' name" at the end of a prayer does not guarantee praying with Christ's authority. It signifies aligning prayers with Christ's character and intentions.
- - Authentic Prayer: To pray in Jesus' name requires understanding Him, His actions, and His promises. It means acknowledging reliance on Him for access to God and praying according to God's will. "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us" (1 John 5:14, ESV).
- - Caution: Prayers not aligned with Christ's will or character are considered a sin against Him and should expect no response or fulfillment. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures" (James 4:3, NKJV).
Prayers in Jesus' name should be shaped as Christ might offer them and submitted to God's will.
Just as the presidential press secretaries are bound by duty and postion to speak soley in line with the mind and intentions of the president, so must we be quite certain to not overstep the bounds of our own position.
To pray in Jesus' name, we must know the mind of God AND the heart of God, and aptly allign ourselves to it! Only then, when we speak in alignment "with the Spirit of God, and we dare ask in the name and use the seal of Christ, to set his signature at the bottom of our petition, can we depend upon it. Christ will do it."
"If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you" (John 15:7, NIV).