God's Plan For My Life Series

Eternal life is something that starts now,

and creates inside of you

this fountain of spiritual life and energy

that flows out of you constantly

so that everyone around you is blessed by it.

Eternal life is not just quantity,

it’s the quality,

its Christ living in you, right now,

and changes everything about you.

If we bury the past,

we can come alive spiritually like that.

You see,

When you make a decision to follow Christ, some things go on behind the scenes that you may not be aware of,

but they’re very significant.

Paul says in the next verse (v. 6) And God raised us up with Christ Jesus and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.

Now, when is this talking about.

that we’re raised up and seated with Christ.

Does it mean,

after we die,

we get to go to heaven,

and be seated with Christ in heaven?

No, that’s not what it means.

This verse is in the past tense.

Its talking about something that already happened,

and this letter was not written to dead people,

who are already in heaven.

Paul is saying, hey you guys,

right now, we are raised up from death, with Jesus,

and seated with him in heaven.

In other words, when you chose to follow Christ and turn from your old way of life God raised you up, he gave life to your spirit, and then spiritually, he gave you a special place seated in heaven with Jesus.

This all went on behind the scenes, you didn’t see it happen,

the world didn’t see it take place,

its not physical, its spiritual,

but it is just as real as the chair you’re sitting on.

You see,

heaven isn’t really up in the sky,

somewhere beyond the moon and sun,

Heaven is a spiritual place,

so its not limited by geography,

and the primary characteristic of heaven,

is being in the presence of God.

So when it says you’re seated with Jesus in the heavenly realms,

it means that right now,

you are seated with Jesus

in the continual presence of God.

You may not always feel his presence,

you may not see it,

but if you’re a believer,

you’re always seated in his presence.

Now lets all just stop for a moment

and use our imaginations.

Imagine for a moment that you could see spiritual things as they are.

Imagine that you can see those heavenly realms that Paul is talking about,

where Jesus is seated in the presence of the Father.

There is Jesus, sitting on his throne. There, seated with him, is a group of Christians.

If you look closely, you’ll see Paul, and Peter, and John, and Moses, and Isaiah.

But then you see,

it’s not just the superstar Christians sitting with him, the stumbling Christians are there, also,

and look,

there’s some people from this church,

Look a little closer. Hey, there YOU are.

Would you look at that.

You’re there too,

In the heavenly realms. With Jesus.

How on earth did you get there? Is it because of something you did? Why are you there?

Its because Jesus brought you there. You’re alive spiritually because he made you alive spiritually,

and when he did that,

he seated you in the presence of God,

right next to himself.

I don’t know about you,

but I could get excited about that.

That’ll change your outlook on life