This morning, Stephen spoke from Eph 1:3-14. At the moment, we can perhaps feel frustrated by our experience of church life, faced with restrictions, face coverings and a lack of sung worship. Even now, however, Christ is the same and therefore each one of us has access to God’s blessings and can know something of heaven on earth.
We often think of heaven as an extension to the things we enjoy on earth (for example, when extremely happy, we may say, ‘I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven!’) Heaven is not just for the future, however. Eph 2:6 reminds us that we are now seated in heavenly realms; we are not waiting for the future but are already transported from where we were (dead in transgressions and sins) to a place of heavenly blessing. The ‘unseen world of spiritual reality’, which should be our guide (since we are called to live by faith and not by sight), is our present experience. We may feel masked, silenced and distanced, but the truth is that we can enjoy the security of God’s love and the peace that He brings, for access to His glory is still available to us all.
We know that God’s original creation was good and that God Himself walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, a foretaste of what God always intended our relationship to be. Jesus Christ came to restore that blissful relationship which was marred by sin and to give us access to all that God intended for mankind. All we have to do is to step out of the earthly reality (that which is governed by our five senses, the material, visible world) and into the heavenly reality of the presence and blessing of God.
