A Here-and-now God

A Here-and-Now God

I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13

“ENDURE NOW; ENJOY LATER.” That seems to be the perspective many Christians take on life. It’s reinforced in theologies that have been birthed or emphasized in times of persecution or other difficult circumstances, it ran strong in the first few centuries of the church, and it was common in medieval and Reformation teaching. Life is hard, and the joys of heaven await.

Jesus taught his disciples that they would have trouble in this world but to be of good cheer because he had overcome the world (John 16:33). It’s a profound truth that keeps our focus on eternity. But he didn’t say that we would only have trouble in this world or that he would overcome the world one day but not yet, without any fulfillment in the meantime. No, he said he had already overcome the world, and he invited his followers into the overcoming. We may continue to experience some contradictions to the Kingdom of God, but we also continue to experience its blessings among us. That’s because when the King left, he didn’t actually leave. He promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:20). He sent his Spirit to be with us and in us (John 14:16-21). The idea that life is drudgery here on earth but we have a glorious heaven to look forward to has hints of truth, but it isn’t the full picture. We are promised plenty of joys and advances now.

A Kingdom-oriented mind refuses to defer all the good stuff until after the King’s return. It’s true that the Kingdom will come in its fullness then, but glimpses and tastes of it are already here. We are in the in-between, when expecting too much or too little before the Second Coming are both theological mistakes. If we err on one side, it needs to be on the side of expecting too much. Faith always leans toward moving mountains rather than hills. God’s promises for prayer always seem to stretch our current experience. If it is God’s nature to give good gifts (James 1:17), we are not reaching beyond his nature to ask for them. With the optimism of David’s hope in today’s verse, we seek heaven’s realities in our lives today.

He never tires of giving.