On the holy mount stands the city He founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. (Verses 1-3)
Home. It's why God loves it so. Those gates open wide to receive His children and He lives with them forever in Zion, the New Jerusalem. Biblically, Zion is referenced as both a heavenly city and the earthly Jerusalem. This all speaks a deeper thought to me this morning. That Earth is a shadow of the real. A peek at eternity. Here's why I say this.
The Bible begins as God speaks creation into being, first the heavens then the earth. It's into a garden God places first animals then man and woman. Through the garden runs a beautiful river. The greenery is lush. A remarkable tree stands in its midst--the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God walks with His creation, living with it in intimacy and joy. Until...well, we all know the sorrow of Adam and Eve. This Eden seems a foretaste of Zion, for the Bible ends with a description of heaven, Zion, the New Jerusalem. "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God." God once again living daily with His children. Where? Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. (Revelation) A garden.
It boggles my mind that God created earth to be similar enough to heaven that it becomes a picture of the divine for us. He brought home to planet Earth. A taste of heaven to man. Maybe so that when we see the pounding rivers, the majestic mountains, the roaring seas, hanging fruit and luscious plant life, we get a little homesick. Some of us don't know the feeling to be that. But it seems that built into us is a desire for living water and communion with God. What if we were to be believed by every person on the earth that God, THE GOD, wants relationship with them. That when we see sunsets and rainbows, get that deep inexplicable yearning that the beauty of the earth stirs in us, it means the Creator is hinting at so much more to be enjoyed forever. What if one day we participated in beauty in such a way that we no longer describe it but are a part of it? If fruit on the earth is sweet and delicious, how much more the real fruit of heaven. For the earthly is only a shadow of the real Zion.
Would anyone then refuse God?
And why does God love Zion so? It's home. The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, lives in splendor undefined by anything here on Earth. God Almighty, glowing from His own brilliance like diamonds and jasper, reigns from a throne set in the midst of a rainbow of emerald hues too intense for the human eye to view. In constant harmony, heavenly beings praise Him day and night as thunder crashes and lightning flashes in an explosion of power God cannot keep leashed. Jesus is there. The Lamb. He will rise soon to Mount Zion and command the end times. (Revelation 14) From Zion the politics of the nations are decreed. It is the center of everything. The real. Insinuating itself upon the shadow.
But one day we will know as we are known. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13. We will go home. And realize we've been living in a crummy apartment when a palace awaits. All our sensory experiences will have been drab in comparison to the richness of heavenly fare. We in Him and He in us and all in the Father, ravished and completed by the consummation of a love we all desire but can't quite reach on Earth. We will walk through the door, Jesus, the gate of heaven, and participate eternally in "the glorious things" spoken about the city of God.
Home. It's why God loves it so. Those gates open wide to receive His children and He lives with them forever in Zion, the New Jerusalem. Biblically, Zion is referenced as both a heavenly city and the earthly Jerusalem. This all speaks a deeper thought to me this morning. That Earth is a shadow of the real. A peek at eternity. Here's why I say this.
The Bible begins as God speaks creation into being, first the heavens then the earth. It's into a garden God places first animals then man and woman. Through the garden runs a beautiful river. The greenery is lush. A remarkable tree stands in its midst--the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God walks with His creation, living with it in intimacy and joy. Until...well, we all know the sorrow of Adam and Eve. This Eden seems a foretaste of Zion, for the Bible ends with a description of heaven, Zion, the New Jerusalem. "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God." God once again living daily with His children. Where? Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. (Revelation) A garden.
It boggles my mind that God created earth to be similar enough to heaven that it becomes a picture of the divine for us. He brought home to planet Earth. A taste of heaven to man. Maybe so that when we see the pounding rivers, the majestic mountains, the roaring seas, hanging fruit and luscious plant life, we get a little homesick. Some of us don't know the feeling to be that. But it seems that built into us is a desire for living water and communion with God. What if we were to be believed by every person on the earth that God, THE GOD, wants relationship with them. That when we see sunsets and rainbows, get that deep inexplicable yearning that the beauty of the earth stirs in us, it means the Creator is hinting at so much more to be enjoyed forever. What if one day we participated in beauty in such a way that we no longer describe it but are a part of it? If fruit on the earth is sweet and delicious, how much more the real fruit of heaven. For the earthly is only a shadow of the real Zion.
Would anyone then refuse God?
And why does God love Zion so? It's home. The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, lives in splendor undefined by anything here on Earth. God Almighty, glowing from His own brilliance like diamonds and jasper, reigns from a throne set in the midst of a rainbow of emerald hues too intense for the human eye to view. In constant harmony, heavenly beings praise Him day and night as thunder crashes and lightning flashes in an explosion of power God cannot keep leashed. Jesus is there. The Lamb. He will rise soon to Mount Zion and command the end times. (Revelation 14) From Zion the politics of the nations are decreed. It is the center of everything. The real. Insinuating itself upon the shadow.
But one day we will know as we are known. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13. We will go home. And realize we've been living in a crummy apartment when a palace awaits. All our sensory experiences will have been drab in comparison to the richness of heavenly fare. We in Him and He in us and all in the Father, ravished and completed by the consummation of a love we all desire but can't quite reach on Earth. We will walk through the door, Jesus, the gate of heaven, and participate eternally in "the glorious things" spoken about the city of God.
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