I must not let my view of heaven and hell become blurred by believing that they are only future. I have always been taught that heaven and hell are locations, which is true, but not altogether true. They are also relationships, and that is where the qualities of both existences can be experienced now.
Paul says, “The widow who lives for pleasure [self-indulgence] is dead even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6, NIV). That means, if my will is out of harmony with God, a miniature hell is set up in my heart. Horace Fenton, former director of the Latin American Mission, says, “Hell is God giving to men what they have wanted all their lives—freedom from Him.” If so, then to the extent any person—even a Christian—pulls away from God to his own way, to that extent he sips the misery of the one who will be forever and completely independent of God.
But heaven also can be mine now, at least partially and in foretaste. To say, “Lord, Thy will be done,” is to transplant heaven to earth, from a location to an experience. It is to make what is normal in heaven normal for me on earth, thus producing a taste of its joys before time. The Christian who longs for heaven, who cannot wait for it, is missing a valuable opportunity to enjoy it now. I can walk with heaven’s attraction (Jesus), think heaven’s thoughts, do heaven’s bidding, and sing heaven’s praises now. The materials that produce a heavenly atmosphere are already at my disposal; I need not wait till I get there to use them.
Lord, teach me how to walk the “enveloped” life, enveloped by the perfume of heaven in the midst of this contaminated world. For that is what God has promised me: a taste “of the world to come” (Hebrews 6:5, KJV).
“But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Daily with the King 