The Promised Land

My daughter asked me today if I had ever been to the Promised Land. I had to fight the urge to say, "well I grew up in Indiana!" So I told her that I have not been there, but maybe someday.

I hope to experience the Biblical Education Tour offered by The Salvation Army when I become eligible to go. Seeing the land of Israel is a life-changing experience if I am to believe my family and friends who have taken the trip. But ultimately, I am bound for a different Promised Land - I'm Heaven-bound.

Many people are looking forward to Heaven either when they die or when Jesus comes back, whichever comes first. If that hope is able to keep them going, then God bless them. For me, knowing of the riches of Heaven drives me to want to bring its reality closer to the here and now.

If you turn on the news or even get to know your next door neighbor, it doesn't take too long to realize that Hell is quite real, and not just as a small town in Michigan. Though I do believe in a literal Hell as the endless punishment of the wicked, I know too well the feeling of torment here on Earth. So many of the people we work with on a daily basis don't know a life apart from that feeling. I want to bring them to the Promised Land - not when they die, not when Jesus comes, but right now.

We are the citizens of the Kingdom of God. The proclamation of both John the Baptist and Jesus the Messiah was this - "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" I believe this proclamation to fit into a concept that was explained to me as a "now/not yet" text. While there is the ultimate fulfillment of this in Heaven, there is also the present fulfillment here on Earth.

Yes, we should be hopeful for the things to come. But while keeping that hope, let us press on in Kingdom business here and now. Let's find those who know Hell all too well and do all we can to show them what Heaven really is all about.

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