Where God Is
Where is God?
Is He far away?
Is He located in the sky?
Is He located beyond the boundaries of the universe?
Where IS He?
If we’re honest, I think many of us picture God in a far away place called “heaven.”
But we have so much trouble when we attempt to explain where heaven is exactly.
Learn Where Heaven and Earth Overlap in this brief Bible Project Video
Is it up?
In the clouds?
Or is it merely a spiritual place without physical real-ness?
It’s tough for us to locate heaven. And so it’s tough to find God.
But we imagine at the end, when we get to heaven, God will be there. And that’s enough.
But for many, this leaves us with a vague sense of a God who is too far away to hear us, to see us, and to know us.
A God who cares only about our afterlife. Who is indifferent toward us and our real, very ordinary, every day life.
A God unseen and uninvolved.
The problem is, that this distant-uninvolved-God is the opposite of our God revealed in Scripture.
Remember God‘s first reaction when Adam and Eve sinned? It wasn’t to leave them, but actually to go find them.
“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8-9
Did you notice where God was located? On earth. Walking. And of course in heaven, too. Pursuing Adam and Eve.
God not only pursues them, but actually begins to set up Eden again on earth.
Did you know that, for Israel, the Tabernacle and the Temple were meant to be the place where heaven and earth connected? A renewed Eden!
They were actually designed to look like Eden, with walls and furniture covered with lush greenery. Unending nutrients in the “bread of the presence.” A tree of life, the seven branched menorah, giving light to the whole realm…
And a veil (curtain), depicting two giant angels blocking the Holiest Place, where God dwells.
Check out this beautiful 3D walkthrough of the Tabernacle
It was God’s desire and design in setting up the Tabernacle, to dwell with His people, and to create a culture that carried heaven on earth:
“And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst…The tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you… and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them.” Exodus 25:8-22 & Exodus 29:42-46
“However surprising it may be for modern westerners to hear it, within the worldview formed by the ancient scriptures, heaven and earth were always made to work together, to interlock and overlap….The Temple was not simply a convenient place to meet for worship….It was the place above all where the twin halves of the good creation, [heaven and earth], intersected. When you went up to the Temple, it was not as though you were ‘in heaven’. You were actually there. That was the point.” -NT Wright
In the Bible, heaven is located where God is. And for Israel God was in His Temple.
Like Israel, we are made to build our lives, our everyday ordinary lives, with a restful intentionality, a mindfulness that we, too, are little temples, a place where His presence can dwell.
The question isn’t whether we’re going to heaven, but how much of heaven is in us.
And that through us, Jesus’ prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” is answered. (Matthew 6:10 & John 14:20).
Come Sunday as we dive deeper into The Resting Place series, and experience God’s commitment to “Hear from Heaven,” as he indwells Solomon’s Temple.
In the meantime, may our hearts rest in Him,
Pastor Dave