As Above So Below?

[Starwynd]

How different will heaven be from our earthly existence?

This is a serious question.

If it isn’t any real different, why should we continue to worship God?

 

[cpayne]

Well, we should worship God just for who He is, even apart from any promise of heaven. But why do you think heaven won’t be really different from now?

 

[Starwynd]

I donl’t know if it will or won’t. I fervently hope it will be.

 

[teachccd]

Saint Paul says that eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has in store for those who love Him. I’m sticking with that idea since Paul encountered our risen Lord. However heaven is we do not know but we do know that we will be in the presence of God and that should speak for itself…teachccd

 

[als10062008]

Heaven is paradise. We can not understand how wonderful it will be until God has perfected us. On the opposite side, hell is worse than anyone can imagine, as one would be completely separated from God. So we worship God for the sacrifice Jesus made to allow us to celebrate eternal joy.

 

[coyotekate77]

Something to consider:

Sometimes life ‘on earth’ can be very difficult. But part of the point of living is to ‘fit oneself for heaven.’ We have to walk a very fine line here. If we focus too much on how different life in heaven will be–no more tears, no more pain, never-ending bliss–and get even more disgusted with ‘living on earth’ to where we are just silently seething about the unfairness of ‘life’ while ‘hanging ten’ and just waiting until we get ‘rewarded’ with heaven–we’re not understanding the purpose of either heaven or earth.

If we are acting in a Christ-like way, then we are facing all the bumps and difficulties of earthly living just as if we were already in heaven, so to speak. If somebody snarls at us, we bless them. If we are ill, we thank God just as sincerely as if we were well. We do our small, boring, mundane tasks as if we were creating the most sublime masterpieces for God.

So when we get to heaven, we will indeed see ‘clearly’ and we will indeed have the joy of the Beatific Vision. . .but we’ll have it because we have prepared our eyes for it. If you were to come out of a dark cave suddenly into the noon-time glare of a summer tropic sun, your eyes will feel pain and it will take some time for you to be accustomed to the light. If you have gradually come from a cave to a dim room to a brighter room and then by degrees under a shady tree in that tropic sun, when you step out from the tree, it won’t take much adjustment at all to see that tropic sun.

That being said I am the first to admit that I fail miserably at trying to live a Christ-like life every day. . .but every morning I have on earth I am (with His grace) going to keep on trying, one day at a time.

 

[fhansen]

How different will heaven be from our earthly existence?

This is a serious question.

If it isn’t any real different, why should we continue to worship God?

If there were to be no difference, there’d probably be little reason to worship Him. We trust Him and the promises He’s made through His revelation-we trust that He’s so awesome and worthy of love because of what He does-and because He is love-and we trust that we don’t know and can’t imagine what He has in store for those who love Him. And some people, from OT times through to now, have been blest with foretastes of His presence and have testified about it, attempting to explain the ineffable experience of complete and unending bliss-and of a peace that passes all human understanding.

 

[Greg27]

Treating this as a philosophical question, this is a question of the vision of God. Thomas Aquinas believed that the blessed see God’s essence, though this view was not shared by some Eastern Christians. What exactly it means to see God’s essence is not always clear, but Thomas probably meant the human mind takes part perfectly in the life and existence of God in heaven, and this constitutes the end for which all human beings were created. Other philosophers also believed the vision of God is also a direct participation or union of the created intellect with the divine intellect; Meister Eckhart’s mysticism for example, often speaks of how the human soul and God become so alike the two can’t be distinguished.

I suppose heaven to the ordinary person is a place of endless happiness and joy, while to thinking person it is the end of all intellectual inquiry. For the thinking person, that is knowing the mind of God, but to know the mind of God requires likeness to God in some way. Thomas and Augustine were quite brilliant to suggest that this likeness occurs through grace, which unites the human intellect with the divine intellect, and the human intellect is therefore united to its end and finds final satisfaction.

 

[mangy_dog]

How different will heaven be from our earthly existence?

This is a serious question.

If it isn’t any real different, why should we continue to worship God?

The words for this thread (if I’m not mistaken) “As above, so Below”…I believe are written on the arms of the baphomet.

So much for the serious question.

 

[Archus]

our experience in heaven will be very different to that of our earthly existence. For starters, no sin or evil. Everything there is good.

Moreover, everything that IS good will be realised in full and its effects are multiplied almost infinite-fold. We are given eternal life, which is not to say an endless era of existence, but because we are with God, it is the completion of life. A life that death and sin cannot touch. We do not need to ask questions, because as we are with God, He who is Truth and is infinite wisdom is truly with us and us with Him always.

We must worship Him, because He is worth loving, and only because He has loved us first. He has given us life, and free will so that out of the darkness that surrounds us, we can come to him willingly. However, because of our human nature, our experience of God is severely limited. “For now I see a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall understand fully.” (1 Cor 13:12)