HERE AS IN HEAVEN
Kendra Intihar
Today's Scripture: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:17, ESV
Theme: Jesus came to save the world through His obedience and sacrifice.
FAR FROM GOD’S GOODNESS
God made this world, and He called it good. In fact, God observes the goodness of His Creation seven times in Genesis 1. But the Deceiver slipped into God’s good garden and exploited humanity’s free will, introducing condemnation, shame, and brokenness into the world. And we’ve been broken-yet-beloved ever since.
All of us know what it is to live through a kind of “hell on earth”: devastating diagnoses, the untimely loss of friends and family, the relentlessly violent news cycle, or—perhaps especially—the consequences of our own sin. People everywhere suffer physically, spiritually, and emotionally, and it can feel like the whole world seems condemned. We are so far from the goodness God intended. Or are we?
CLOSER THAN WE THINK…
Psalm 139:8 reminds us that no matter where we are, God pursues us: “If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” (Psalm 139:8b, ESV). Jesus willingly entered a suffering world—our Sheol-on-earth—to suffer alongside us and proclaim the Good News: “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” He didn’t come to condemn an already-condemned world, but to save it!
He proved His great love for us by submitting to death on a cross, but Love didn’t stop there. Even in death, Love was still at work—breaking the chains of the grave to rescue and redeem us all. That same Good News still holds for us who feel crushed by the weight of this world. Jesus offers light in our darkness; hope in our “Sheol.” Not someday, not merely reserved for the afterlife. Today! The Kingdom of God is at hand! In Jesus, we can not only experience His Kingdom on earth, but help reveal it to a hopeless, hurting world.
ANOTHER DIMENSION
As a family with two little boys, we talk about faith almost as much as we talk about Spider-Man. Several years ago, while riding home in the car, my oldest son—a lifelong Marvel multiverse fanatic—piped up from his booster seat: “Mom, I think heaven is just another dimension. It’s right here, but we usually can’t see it. It’s all around us, though.”
My jaw dropped. What he thought was a clever comparison to the “multiverse” landed in my heart as a deeply profound, faithfully childlike observation, because YES! So often we forget that we are citizens of both a temporal world and an eternal one—spiritual and material at the same time. When we choose to follow Jesus, we become citizens of Heaven, and we are invited to give others a glimpse of that “alternate dimension.” As believers, we are called to help reveal God's goodness—to make His kingdom visible—by loving our world-weary neighbors the way Jesus does.
Make it Personal: We feel condemned enough in this world, don’t we? Jesus didn’t come to heap condemnation on this world, but to save it, to restore it, and to restore our relationship with Him. In Christ, we are radically free to live a life of wholeness and radically commissioned to become living evidence of the Good News of God’s plan for salvation in this world. Ask God to help you reveal His love to this generation and experience His good plan for this world “on earth as it is in Heaven.”
Pray: Lord, sometimes it feels like humanity is going through hell right here on earth, but You have promised us that whatever we are going through--even if we make our bed in Sheol--You are there. Help me be an emissary of Your goodness in the midst of the persistent pain all around us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; Colossians 3:1-3; Mark 1:15
Weekly Memory Verse: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,” Luke 4:18, ESV