Living New Heaven & Earth Realities

My friend Kevin strikes gold again in his unique voice (you can get one of these every week here):

jesus-in-light-large.jpgDrawing from their ancient predecessors, John and Peter — both belonging to the group of Jesus’ original twelve friends — envisioned the arrival of a New Heaven and New Earth. Peter encouraged his original readers to hasten the day, and John believed that the time was at hand.

The New Heaven and New Earth expected by the apostolic witnesses was not a refurbished space-time universe. Instead, they believed that the day of a kosmic transformation had arrived, and a new world order had begun. The first one — glorious in itself — was being surpassed by a new one of exceeding glory. The first one was characterized by law, judgment, and promise while the second one would be filled with righteousness, grace, and fulfillment.

The first world divided people as good and evil, clean and unclean, us and them. The last world order transcended differences and integrated humanity into one new being. It is this new Heaven and New Earth that we dwell in today.

Awakening to New Heaven and New Earth realities transforms everything about us. Our thinking, relationships, and place in the world undergo a transfiguration as we begin to thrive in the all-in-allness of the God who is Love. Thinking in terms of a New Heaven and New Earth created by the power of Love allows us to experience four intersecting dimensions of fulfilled living and to conceptualize life in terms of four three-dimensional spheres.

Each sphere represents an aspect of your own garden that God has entrusted into your hands to tend and keep. As you nurture each sphere in love, you’ll find the healing fruit of the Spirit blossoming year-round. The first sphere is the Inner-Sphere. This includes your individual head and heart space. This is the single-most important sphere to cultivate because this houses our core self. Jesus affirmed that out of our heart comes the fruit of our lives. An Inner-Sphere overgrown with anger, frustration, and bitterness results in physical and emotional suffering. However, planting the small seeds of love, compassion, and kindness brings forth a harvest of self-care that reaches into the other spheres.

The Second Sphere, the Inter-Sphere, involves your interpersonal relationships, your dealings with others. Bringing conscious love into your family and friendships opens the way to deepening integrity and intimacy. Ignoring your closest relationships brings about inner turmoil and separation. However, filling the Inter-Sphere with love causes the New Heaven and Earth of your relationships with other people to bring about feelings and actions that promote healing and growth.

The Trans-Sphere cuts across the various organizational, national, and cultural boundaries you participate in. This sphere allows you to gain a global perspective, recognizing that nearly 7 billion people currently inhabit spaceship earth. In the Trans-Sphere, we share a common space regardless of our apparent differences and acknowledge the interconnected Presence of God look into one another’s eyes. It is the way to recognize the collective all-in-allness of God.

Finally, the Supra-Sphere transcends time and place in order to develop a link with the all-in-all across the ages. All people of all time, the entirety of the kosmos, the environment we inhabit, the fullness of God, and the blessed spiritual unfolding constitutes the Supra-Sphere. David wrote sacred script for a “generation not yet born.” He sensed his own place in the Supra-Sphere and consciously contributed his unique loving gifts to it.

Focusing solely on one or two of these Spheres leaves the others empty, but balanced living attends to all four of these spheres. As you discover the fullness of God’s love pervading all of four spheres, you’ll find the New Heaven and New Earth expanding to include and embrace the continual emerging perfection of God’s graceful dwelling. J. Krishnamurti observes, “To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves. However small may be the world we live in, if we can transform ourselves, bring about a radically different point of view in our daily existence, then perhaps we shall affect the world at large, the extended relationship with others.”

Stephanie Dorwick notes, “The goals of self-discovery are attuned to life.” So begin attuning to your life by asking yourself, “What would my Inner-Sphere look like with love? How will love for myself transform my head space and heart space?” Stay with that for a while and revisit it often, becoming aware of the answers you find emerging. Then, do the same for the other three spheres. As you consciously tend and keep your worlds in love, you’ll discover the ever-increasing blooming from the tree of life.

2 Responses to Living New Heaven & Earth Realities

  1. Peter K Bell January 30, 2008 at 6:16 am #

    Parker Palmer wrote, “We can transform our culture only as we are inwardly transformed.”
    Martin Luther said, “The Bible instructs us to love our neighbor, and since our wife is our nearest neighbor, she should receive the firstfruits of our love.”
    An ad in the Christian bookstore says, “What’s the best way to show love to your kids? By loving their mom!”
    One of the saddest people I know is a recoverning addict and wife abuser who has what I sense is a genuine call to reach out in evangelistic fervor to the ends of the earth, but is blind to the needs of his wife and four kids–needs that are obvious to lots of observers!
    To apply a Ken Wilber picture to the above paradigm of the four Spheres: These can be seen as Nests, “nesting” inside one another; and as stated in the reading above, we all need to start with the “first Sphere (Nest)first”–NOT to get stuck there, but because our success in building the house starts with a solid-rock foundation.
    –Just a few random historical/contemporary side comments, along with my encouragement to “keep going forward” in your search for ways to live out the New Heaven & New Earth Realities in Jesus.

    Bless you!
    Peter

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