Heaven isn't the end of the world.

“Heaven is great, but it’s not the end of the world.” – Bishop N.T. Wright

What if we’re missing the whole point?

The argument among Christians today is all about what we need or don’t need to get to heaven. The current Christian argument, as I understand it, goes something like this:

There are some who seem to imply that to achieve salvation we must deal with society's systemic evils, things like injustice, poverty, racism, etc. This is ultimately what determines who will go to heaven. Doing these things is typically emphasized over personal sin. These people are usually called the “Christian Left.”

The other group, called the “Christian Right,” focuses on our personal guilt before a righteous God. This group is split further into two camps. The first group's argument seems to look like this:

We must believe in, and accept, Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin, which He, as our Savior, removed on the cross by dying for our sins. What exactly you “believe” or how you “believe” it varies slightly, but the idea is that there is nothing we can do to earn our way to heaven. We just accept God’s forgiveness.

The other side also claims that we must believe in and accept Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. But in order to have the type of faith that saves us, we must also intentionally make Jesus Christ the "Lord" of our life and have a proper intention of obeying His commands. This is the determining factor in getting into heaven.

But what if each of these groups is missing the point? Notice that they aren’t disagreeing that the supreme objective is to get to heaven. They simply disagree on how to get there. But what if God is bigger than both "left" and "right"?

What if, instead of looking at heaven as the ultimate goal, we saw things like living in God’s kingdom NOW and living the eternal life NOW as the goal? Then things like salvation and heaven become the types of things that naturally come along with and flow out of living this type of life?

I think when we must first come to understand terms like, “the kingdom of God” to be, not just heaven, but anywhere that God reigns, or “eternal life” to be, not just heaven, but a type of life lived with a proper knowledge of God (as John 17:3 says, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”)