Heaven is Here and Now

I am reading the book Velvet Elvis and it is radically changing my view on Christianity and how I view God. God is showing me truth that is relevent to me today. It puts awe inside of me when I think about my savior and what he has done for me. I want to share a little from the book. I hope everyone reads this book.

So this reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross, he was reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to God. All things everywhere. This reality then isn't something we make true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making
God is retelling each of our stories in Jesus. All the bad parts and the ugly parts and the parts we want to pretend never happened are redeemed. They seemed pointless and they were painful at the time, but God retells our story and they become the moments when God's grace is most on display. We find ourselves asking, am i really forgiven of that? The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true. Our choice becomes this, We can trust his retelling of the story, or we can trust our telling of our story. It is a choice we make every day about the reality we are going to live in
And this reality extends beyond this life
Heaven is full of forgiven people
Hell is full of forgiven people
Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for
Hell is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for
The difference is how we chose to live, which story we choose to live in which version of reality we trust. Ours or God's
When we chose God's version of who we are, we are living as God made us to live. We are living in the flow of how we are going to live forever. This is the life of heaven, here and now. As we life this life in harmony with God's intentions ofr us, the life of heaven becomes more and more present in our lives. Heaven comes to Earth. That is why Jesus teaches his disciples to pray "May your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven". There is this place, this realm, heaven where things are as God desires them to be. As we live this way, heaven comes here. To this place, this world, the one we are living in.
WOW! This changes how I live my life. It is how we live now that determines how we will live in eternity. It is just a continuation. That is amazing. That really challenged me to realize that I am forgiven, and that I can have an identity in Christ and that heaven can be lived here on earth because God made me a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come.

A friend of mine wrote this but I think it describes perfectly how I am feeling.

"For months I have been carrying around a deep longing in my heart. But everytime I examine it, I walk away unable to put into words. The ach fills me and I constantly feel it, but I cannot define it.
I ache for something that cannot be put into words. I ache for the touch of my creator. I ache for someone who is beyond words. My spirit cries for his spirit as deep calls out to deep. I cannot define my longing, it is not quantifiable or measurable and only the infinite and immeasurable can understand it and fill it."

A new year has begun. I am finished with my first week of classes and I am overwelmed. Welcome to college life Beth Burkey. I have realized that I have been really blessed the past year and a half because the work load was not that hard. Well that is about ready to change. I don't know how I will get through it but it will only be by God's great grace.

I also just found out that I have been accepted into the social work program at IWU. I am really excited. I have found the major where God wants me. I don't know what he wants me to do with my degree but he will reveal that in his time. In the meantime I will trust him and allow him to guide and direct me on the path that he wants me to walk down. He is teaching me so much. If I could sum up my life in a couple of sentences it would be: God has placed a holy discontentment in my heart for where i am at in my walk with him. I desire to step away from religion and to step into the unknown realm where Jesus lives. I desire to be a disciple of his. I desire a pure and authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. I desire to use the passions, talents and abilities that God has given me to impact the lives of those in need whether that be children that have been abused, neglected or sexually abused; young teen mothers that don't know where to turn, through the little sister i have through the big brothers, big sisters program, through taking a leadership role as a mentor in the new dorm on campus. I don't know exactly where but i have a passion for people.

He has also given me a passion for children that have been abused and for women dealing with domestic abuse. This is where my volunteer work is leading me and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in this semester. I really would like to volunteer at an organization in Marion called Hands of Hope.

I read these statics and they amazed me. Things need to change and it is making me step into action to try to do something about it.

These statistics come from David Livermore's book Serving with Eyes Wide Open. The research supported these stats is well documented by the book.)
Population:
Every second, 4 babies are born. In the time that it's taken you to read the beginning of this post, around 60 newborns entered this story.
More than twice as many people are born each day than die.
There are 6.5 billion people in the world today.
20% live in China.
20% live in India.
5% live in the U.S.
55% throughout the other nations of the world.
Line up the 6.5 billion in a single file line, and it would wrap around the globe 110 times.
Nearly half the people in the world today are children, as compared to 20% of Americans are under age 15.
Poverty:
20% of the world live on one dollar a day.
Another 20% live on two dollars a day.
20% live on $70 a day.
The other 40% are somewhere in between.
The combined income of the 447 wealthiest people in the world is more than the combined income of 50% of the world's population (3.25 billion).
Americans (5% of the world) consume 50% of the worlds resources.Health:
30,000 people will die today because of preventable disease.
40% of the world today lacks basic sanitation facilities.
One billion people have unsafe drinking water.Displaced People:
More than 12 million people have been forced out of their native land (refugees).
Another 24 million have fled conflict and/or persecution and are displaced within their own country.