Spiritual Moments, Courts and Horizons

[HKHaugan]

When I see a sunrise I see the Resurrection. When I see a sunset I see the Cross. In both, the beauty is perceived in the heart, contemplated in the mind and located in Jesus. From Son-rise to Son-set, it’s all about Him. If we carry that thought into our moment to moment days, it is the experiences, those personal and interpersonal moments we practice consciously giving to Jesus and observing how He concludes it. We see Him in each new situation and see Him as it ends. It is not that He disappears in between those moments but rather that He gives us the opportunity to evaluate them and store them as testimony.

Now carry this thought a bit further. We are all born as images of God, called to honor and serve Him and then join Him in His forever Kingdom. Our birth is the beginning of a moment in His Kingdom and our death is the conclusion of our call to be a moment in this world. Each of us is a spiritual moment, event, occasion in the overall plan of His Creation.

What makes this moment that we are a living moment, a conscious reality? Jesus says that if we seek we will find and the door will be open (Mt.7:7). It's seeking through His Word. “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away (Mt.24:35).” Jesus is the Word that became flesh and lived among us (Jn.1:1). The written Word is the expression of who He is and what real life is all about.

It is what is implied in those statements that places us in the doorway of the eternal moment and that moment is what we are getting to here. We are moments in an eternity of moments that become a one moment in Him. It is the Word that develops those moments.

However, with Jesus and His Word, the eternal moments become an expansion of relationships that never cease. The Kingdom of God is what we were created for. There is another however, however. When the moment becomes a moment of personal survival, self-centering satisfaction and our only purpose, to make it to the next moment, we will see each moment fade into an agonizing sense of lonely failure. Our moment dissolves into a fading island of isolation, fear, depression and unyielding distance from God and others. That, in a word, is hell.

If we go back to our Son-rise and Son-set it is the scenery in this world that is a copy and shadow of the eternal moment. So just take in the scenery, breathe in the atmosphere and drink in the experience. These are expressions that describe being part of and wanting more of what your mind and heart are sensing. It could be the breathtaking sight of a whole mountain range as you reach to the end of a hike to the top. Perhaps you have just been wrapped in the moment of a magnificent performance by an orchestra or single performer. Or, in a some personal moment you have found a oneness with someone in a mutually realized insight. These too are parallel moments you were designed to enjoy, part of the created wonder of being a human moment, an image and likeness of God appreciating life.

So, on the deepest and most profound level, our moments were created to enjoy God, enjoy ourselves as created images of God and enjoy relational community connected to one another by the Spirit of God. When Jesus said there were many rooms in His Father’s house it implied something we were all created for. There is a main room, an atmosphere, in which we relate fully and openly with Him in the Spirit. There is another, an experience, in which we find self-fulfillment, our sense of identity, where our meaning and purpose are complete in the Spirit. Then we have the room, the scenery, in which we relate to all those who are brothers and sisters in the Spirit.

These are all connected to the throne room of worship, the Father’s heart, Jesus’ heart, the Spirit’s heart, the unified heart of God and Jesus the Lamb of God is the Temple. The angels and the multitude of past believers singing praises to God and all joining in a common chorus. These words fall so short of the reality that is in Heaven but the courts of His Kingdom have been opened for us even though, as Paul says, ‘we see through a glass darkly.’

Paul writes about those courts. They are courts of spiritual moments he describes as fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit the Holy Spirit produces is love, joy and peace. It is being patient, kind and good. It is being faithful and gentle and having control of one's self (Gal.5:22-23).”

He elaborates further in 2Cor.3:17 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Then in Gal.5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” On in Col.2:2-3 “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

These are introductions to the depth that is the Kingdom. When we open our hearts to the Lord we taste the scenery, the atmosphere and the experience of spiritual reality. Jesus said, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matt.25:34).”

Jesus endured the Cross to prepare the way for us to enter the Kingdom. His shed blood provided our forgiveness, which opened the way for us to experience the Holy Spirit who brings us into the courts of His temple.

One last thought. In this world we will never understand everything. It is not what we know but Who we know. Everything we need to know about Jesus is in Scripture. We are not called to get our mind around Jesus and His Word but to let Him get His mind and His Word around us.