For my birthday in 1987, I received the first cassette of my very own—Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven on Earth. While there were a lot of good songs on that album, I listened to Heaven is a Place on Earth over and over again. (My poor parents!) I knew exactly how long to hit the rewind button to get it back to the beginning. And it’s back to the beginning that each one of our hearts longs to go as we have an innate desire to see things as they should be. Indeed “he has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Our eternity is meant to be spent in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Heaven is the place where all things are as they should be under the rule and reign of God. Scripture tells us that it is a place where there is no illness, no darkness and no striving. Instead, it is a place of beauty, wholeness and abundance. With the world around us scarred by the impact of the Fall and our lives touched by it each and every day, we can yearn so badly to get there and just endure to the end of our lives with this promise of hope at the finish line.
But we are still in the race. From the very beginning, God desired a partnership with mankind and this partnership remains in place as we are each called to be models and bearers of Kingdom here on earth by participating in things that are the Father’s will. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us of this, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, becomes visible through the embodiment of His will here on earth carried out by those whose hearts are led by and yielded to the Holy Spirit to “act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8). And when this happens…”Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth. They say Heaven, love comes first. We’ll make Heaven a place on Earth. Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth.”
Jessica Klootwyk
Group & Women’s Discipleship Director