This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 2 Episode 130 

THE BEAT | Heaven is More Than the God I Know (a personal manifesto I can live with)

Quick Take 

Hey human, in this episode we consider judgment day, better said, our “bema” and giving God an account, fruitful labor, and seven affirmations. Challenges, perhaps. And my personal manifesto: three truths about Heaven to live by on earth. Join us in e130. Thanks for listening.

How is Jesus moving you toward heaven today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.

Luke 18:38-43

38 He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

39 Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

40 Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, 41 “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

42 Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” 43 Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

Jesus healed people so their earthly life would bear witness to the word becoming flesh. He became the love and power of his Heavenly Father on earth. What Jesus meant was that the blind man’s recognition of his divinity as “the Son of David” is what healed him.

God has the power when we have the will to see him coming.

Why am I starting an episode about Heaven with Jesus healing the blind man, one of the most well-known miracles? I start here because when we care deeply about the blind man, we are halfway home to Heaven.

I just completed a community Bible study with local sisters in Christ, led by a new sister-friend, Leanne. She founded and has been leading this community ministry for 15+ years, serving women from local churches in the area. Thank you, Leanne, for grounding me in going local with Jesus in your ministry.

The study is called Heaven, When Faith Becomes Sight, authored by a woman who has been blind since she was 15. Jennifer Rothschild. Click here for the study.

While the study’s focus is on Heaven I couldn’t stop thinking about, and loving Jesus more, for healing the blind man. Because a blind woman was standing before me, and my heart’s capacity to want that healing for her swelled over the weeks, that I could answer God’s call to want more for her and feel deep joy envisioning this woman being able to see Heaven, whatever that visual landscape ends up being. And that her preparation in this life will reap rich rewards from Jesus day for her faithfulness and work on this earth in what I believe is a God-anointed darkness. Thank you, Jennifer, for walking through your darkness into his light.

Thank you, Lord, for lighting the spiritual way for Jennifer.

It’s Time to Manifest

Today, I find myself rallying toward a personal manifesto about Heaven. In our current culture, the word manifesto often implies radical behavior of a person who has acted out their beliefs in a tragic, destructive way. In my case it is a spiritual call to action to live radically now toward a life in God’s presence in eternity.

Coram deo. 

A manifesto that commits to how I do that on earth. For the sake of Heaven. For the sake of being a witness to his miracles in my life. Like the blind man. For the sake of being a witness to all of you, humans.

I am returning to a few scriptures in the Heaven study, those that settled into my heart for a good long stay. That means I am stirring up accountability for how this really works in my life. I have found it to be the only way to take my growth with me. To return to God’s Word, and how his faithfulness feeds my faithfulness.

The Judgment Seat of Christ – My Bema Performance

I start with the end in mind. Judgment day. God’s judgment seat.

Three theological truths lay the foundation for my manifesto.

1. The purpose of judgment day for believers is not to give or take away salvation. That is done, accepted, delivered by Christ when we confess, repent and give our life to him. Listen to our apostle Paul:

Ephesians 2:8-9 states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not from works, so that no one can boast”.

Romans 8:1 declares, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”.

2. The purpose of judgment day is personal, that I am responsible for giving an account of myself to God. I could live on this alone because it gives such clarity and direction to my priorities. Before I think, feel, speak, act, I picture myself explaining it to God. And he is saying something like, “Go on, I have time…”

Romans 14:10-12

10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,

‘every knee will bow before me;

    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

3. The purpose of judgment day is for believers to receive our rewards.

In the New Testament, the Greek word “bema” (bay-mah) is used to describe the “judgment seat of Christ.”

Consider Paul to the Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may be rewarded for what he has done in his body, whether good or bad.”

Strong’s concordance breaks down bema like this:

a raised place mounted by steps: a platform, tribune; of the official seat of a judge; of the judgment seat of Christ.

In the secular Roman world, Herod built a structure resembling a throne at Caesarea, from which he viewed the games and made speeches to the people. The connotative use of the word “judgment” divides people. Literally, and ideologically. But in the case of the believer, and a believer’s bema, it is about how we performed. Every bema is personal.

I think of it as how we “ran the earthly race” back toward God’s glory.

Consider this analogy:

Let’s say you and I decide to run a marathon. 26 miles. We make the commitment, register, mark our calendars, and begin to train.

You chart a training schedule that steadily accelerates your performance and gets you to the 26-mile mark. You adjust your diet for optimum performance, purchase the appropriate running gear, and train diligently, with discipline, and specifically to prevent “hitting the wall.” The wall is often about the 20-mile mark, a common experience for marathon runners. It is a sudden feeling, a profound drop in energy and a significant slowing of their pace, often described as a feeling of extreme fatigue and a loss of control due to glycogen depletion. Consistent, disciplined training is the best way to prevent it.

So, that’s how you trained.

I take another approach. I do not chart a training schedule. I do a few longer runs as race day gets closer, on days when I am feeling like running. I cut a couple of nutrition’s bad actors out of my diet and buy new shoes for race day. I count on my courage, time-proven adrenaline and ability to rally for that one day when I need it. Because I have done that so many earthly times. I am strong-willed in foolish moments with beatable odds.

That’s how I trained.

Who completes the race? We both do.

But if marathon race day is like Heaven, one of us enjoys it at a deeper level. And Heaven is not just one day. It is eternal life. How we run the earthly race builds our capacity for running the heavenly race well, with all the heavenly rewards. Ok, it’s better in Jesus’ words:

Revelations 22:12

Epilogue: Invitation and Warning

12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”

Jesus will give me my rewards. He will give you your rewards.

Redeeming My Rewards in Heaven Based on My Spiritual Character

Redeeming my rewards in Heaven is all about my spiritual character. So, this is a new dimension on receiving redemption. A powerful way to prepare for Heaven.

Hear me out. If how I run the race, the account I give is my bema, then redeeming my rewards, the ones Jesus is bringing with him is about the depth of my spiritual character.

Because it is spiritual muscle I have been building, it is spiritual knowledge I have been hurdling, all for this new Kingdom. A Kingdom for spiritual runners.

Which is why building spiritual character should be the leading focus in earthly life. Fruitful labor that comes from the Holy Spirit. What’s the Holy Spirit? Our trainer for Heaven’s race.

Galatians 5:22-23:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control: Against such things there is no law.”

Philippians 1:21-24

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

This is obvious. So simple. A real challenge, yet so beautiful to think that Heaven is a natural evolution of an earthly life lived in the Spirit.

A Personal Manifesto: Heaven is More Than the God I Know

With a clear view of my bema, my day of accounting, and the fruitful labor my race is producing in my earthly life, in my spiritual character, I am ready: I can frame a manifesto. A written declaration of intentions, of agency.

For me, a manifesto about Heaven claims the power of my agency through Christ on earth. My spiritual agency that declares how God will move me toward Heaven.

Colossians 1:16

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

My manifesto premise stands well on Colossians 1:16, on the agency of my Creator:

Manifesto premise: Heaven is more than the God I know.

And my first of seven affirmations, such a Biblical number.  Affirmations help us seek clarity for the purpose of quick recall in daily life.

1. Affirmation: My earthly life cannot, does not contain God.

Heaven is more than my earthly deficit. Heaven does not answer to my earthly life, or complete it, because it is an old wine skin. God’s Heavenly Kingdom does more than restore our earthly life and our earthly relationships. Heaven is not equated with restoring what I missed the mark on, fell short of, failed in relationships with, and all the bad choices of my time on earth.

I know that being in God’s presence forever will come with a divine perspective that far surpasses anything I can envision in this life. And deep character growth begins on earth and requires we look forward, and become part of his story, not our earthly ones. God’s story is bigger than me. Because the earth was void and dark. And God spoke it into creation. Ultimately, I was made for companionship with God. Fellowship with others is part of the identity of God.

But it is not all of him. Listen to our prophet, Isaiah, about the earth we know, compared to the new earth.

Isaiah 65: 17-18

New Heavens and a New Earth

17 “See, I will create

    new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

    nor will they come to mind.

18 But be glad and rejoice forever

    in what I will create, (read on for his full description… later)

Heaven is more than the God I know.

2. Affirmation: God has made a deposit that we can redeem during our earthly life. The Spirit leaves a deposit on my heavenly life so that I can navigate an earthly life that is teased, threatened, lured and bullied by our sin nature. With the power of God’s spirit, the only purpose of my earthly life is to awaken my eternal nature. My earthly life gives me time for God to shape, develop and bring into fullness my eternal spirit to bear witness to others. And God’s deposit, his guarantee is risk-free through eternity.

2 Corinthians 1:22:

“And it is God who has set his seal of ownership on us and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come”.

Ephesians 1:13-14:

“In him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In him you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory”.

Heaven is more than the God I know.

3. Affirmation: I turn my will toward “renewing my mind” about Heaven by how God and his Son tell me to prepare for it, that I leave behind, that I am not returning to a restored earthly life. I do not want to live an earthly life set on Heaven’s ability to resolve it. Heaven is not defined by how I live on earth. Heaven is not the answer to my earthly strife. Because our thoughts are not God’s thoughts, and if that isn’t clear enough, God says his ways and thoughts are higher “as the heavens are higher than the earth.”

Now, that’s high.

Isaiah 55:8-9

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Heaven is more than the God I know.

4. Affirmation: Heaven is a kingdom, with a throne. My true country is a sovereign rule. My nature is to worship, serve and fellowship at the King’s table. My divine DNA form God’s Spirit directs my soul to submit, confess, repent, praise, follow and worship one King, the only King.

The world disagrees. The world laughs, scoffs, ridicules, pities, and defies my soul’s journey.

Heaven is more than the God I know.

5. Affirmation: God’s legacy is eternity. I am not leaving a legacy. Jesus is. My earthly life will pass away. But not God’s legacy. Paul tells us to count all as lost.

Philippians 3:8-10

8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Heaven is more than the God I know.

6. Affirmation: I will see Jesus as he is.

1 John 3:2

2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Heaven is more than the God I know.

7. Affirmation: I will have a resurrected body like his glorious body.

Phil 3:20

20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

 

Heaven is more than the God I know.

Three Truths About Heaven to Live By on Earth

If I had to define what Heaven is in two words, it would be this:  God’s presence.

By this, living in the presence of infinite righteousness, God’s full nature.

And paradoxically, there are things that will not be in Heaven, for just that reason. Because his nature is sovereign. And if I can somehow spiritually muster my free will to submit to a deeper wisdom, by his grace alone, I welcome that, Lord.

Well, what are they? What will not be in Heaven? The “new heaven and the new earth” will have no sea, no curse, and no more night. Heaven will have none of these. Yet, how God addresses these earthly realities in Heaven is something we can draw from in earthly life. Now.

So goes what is at the heart of my manifesto. Three truths about Heaven to live by on earth.

1. No Sea | the Rhythm of God’s Heart

Consider God’s words.

Revelation 21:21

A New Heaven and a New Earth

21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

 

I did 99 episodes of this podcast, Season 1 called BUOY, with the ocean in my daily ear. Isn’t Heaven an eternal beach walk, charting my way through the shoreline sand? No, that’s God’s rhythm on earth. I often asked myself, would I rather hear it or see it? Or maybe would I rather feel it? It is a powerful display of God’s power, his presence, and what? His heart.

Revelations refers to a “river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” With that, I imagine that in Heaven, the rhythm of the sea becomes God’s heartbeat, his love coming in to me, Jesus’ love coming to me, and my love going back to the Heavenly Father, and to his Son. Love in, love out. The rushing of his love in, because I am in his presence, in the presence of his heartbeat. It is a powerful display of God’s power, his presence, his heart, and what? His breath.

Genesis 2:7:

“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

Job 12:10

10 In his hand is the life of every creature

    and the breath of all mankind.

 

Breath in, breath out, Love in, love out. My breath comes from God’s breath. This is true now, here on earth. It is a tangible. When I want, I need God closer, I focus on my breathing. When I want God to come closer in my finite little mind and heart, maybe at night, maybe when I wake up, have a troubling day, hour, minute, conversation, I breathe in, and breathe out, and track God’s spirit from within me. He is making it happen.

My declaration: Love in, love out. Breath in, breath out. Imagine being so close to his breath because we live in his new Kingdom.

Let’s look at the last chapter of Revelation for two more truths.

Revelation 22

Eden Restored

22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

 

2. No Curse | God’s Sovereign Glory

Heaven is curse-less. Everything on earth is sin-tempted, sin-laden. Cursed; tragic, death bound. Constrained by the fall in the garden. On earth, everyone falls over and over again.

What does living with no curse mean? Satan is no longer ruler of the old earthly world.

Strife is gone.

Pride gone.

Grief gone.

Sadness gone.

Struggle gone.

Sin gone, gone, gone.

Heaven is an eternal world run by a divine God. Heaven means no more separation from God.

My declaration:

In Heaven:

I am righteous through the Lamb.

I know God as he created me to know him.

I live with God as he had always intended.

And one more truth.

3. No Night | a Timeless Home with a Timeless God

God’s timelessness is his nature. What?

The loss of night seems like such a loss, the loss of a sunrise and sunset every day. A loss of that beacon that summons my rising and resting. Yet in Heaven, God’s glory will summon my rising and my rest in a new, beautiful way. It seems it is the loss of time. The tree of life in the Garden of Eden was the way to live forever.

Eden restored is before our existence, and marks the origin of eternal, which has no origin. Ok, yeah, I don’t get that, either.

As reminder, Heaven is not restoring all the intended good of my earthly life. It is restoring God’s plan from day one of Genesis, and before that, when all the earth was “without form and void.”

The time constraint in earthly life is gone, with the anxious expectation that goes with it; that it will go too slowly, that it will go too quickly, that it will slip through my flesh and turn to dust before I can mark it, mark my place. All of that is gone.

The new heaven and new earth is God’s work, before the apple. Before the serpent, the doubt, the nakedness. God is timeless so his vision and purpose for us long proceeded the garden, the fall. I have come to think about the Garden of Eden as, well, I now think of it as the Garden of God’s Intent. The before-Adam-and-Eve- chomped-on-the-apple plan. Yet, I imagine that God’s wisdom informs and enriches his own wisdom, so who knows what his “new heaven and new earth” will bring us.

My declaration:   I set my earthly heart on rising and resting in God’s timelessness.

While We Wait, We Run

My manifesto comes to this:  God’s heartbeat, his breath, his sovereign, timeless presence. That he alone sustains every moment, and we do not look toward anything but being in his presence in his Kingdom.

Jesus, the one sitting at his right hand, makes that possible.

Heaven is more than the God I know. On earth. But on this journey, we have assurance:

Phil 3:15

15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

God will clarify how I move toward “the new heaven and new earth.” The Bible talks about waiting for Jesus to return. Ok. Ok.

But I know this. While I wait, I run. While you wait, you run, human. You run fast, by the Spirit’s stride.

Let’s run toward Heaven, and his divine, sovereign presence.

Philippians 3:13-14   13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Picture God empowering your spiritual growth right now:  you are on your run. It is a beautiful day, you are accelerating and lengthening your stride, because it feels good, it feels right. Your step is confident, and light, because of what you know, because of how you trained, because of what you believe, because of what you have been granted by the King of the Kingdom you are running toward. You have trained for this day, you know you can go the distance. You break a sweat, and you embrace it, and pick up your pace. Because you know, you have been guaranteed a photo finish with your Savior. He is waiting, with a smile, maybe he is jumping up and down, laughing with joy that you are running toward him, running straight through mile 20 (that really tough season in your life), that you are running through his creation, the spiritual dew, and you catch the glisten of heaven ahead of you. Like dew on grass. Like Stephen’s glimpse of Heaven. Like Elijah being swept onto a chariot. Beyond you.

And you feel like what? Like you could run forever.

And then. You do.