Part One: Chapter 5
The Togethers and Eternal Relationship with God
Consider this analogy of our eternal relationship with God in heaven. Imagine that you win a dinner with the person you most admire and that it will happen a year from now.
You are excited and tell others of your good fortune and from time to time study a bit of information about the famous person. Since it is a year away, there are sometimes days when you only remember in the back of your mind that you will be having the dinner of your lifetime. Then the time comes, and you are completely satisfied.
Now, imagine that you react differently to your good fortune to be with the person you would most like to visit with at dinner. You want the time to be as wonderful as possible. You start by learning deeply about that person. After that you try to become more like that person so that there might be more connection during those two hours at the restaurant. You learn what kind of salad dressing the person always orders so that you can order the same. This makes you feel a little closer to that person, but does nothing to make that person feel closer to you. However, you learn that the famous person you will eat with has a charity for children with cancer. Therefore, you volunteer at a children’s cancer ward at the hospital. When you have dinner and the person learns this, he or she will appreciate you more and you will truly develop a closer relationship. The time comes for the dinner, and you are completely satisfied.
In the same way that you would be completely satisfied with either level of connection and closeness for that two-hour dinner, so it will be in heaven with God. It counts how we prepare now for our relationship with God for all eternity. Not in satisfaction, but in depth and quality of the relationship.
Nothing should ever be more cherished than our relationship with God. Therefore, anything that can enhance that relationship, should be actively pursued. Some ways to become closer to God must be done now – before heaven. Their wonderful benefits in our friendship with God extend to eternity in heaven. But, many cannot be gained there after we die. Now is the time to act!
All of the 65 Togethers of Scripture contribute to our transformation into the image of Jesus Christ, all of them magnify worship by bringing it into everyday life, and all join God in His fight against evil and the devil. And all of the Togethers can bring us closer to God now with even more wonderful results for that relationship in heaven for all eternity.
When we get to heaven we will all receive a permanent power surge in sensing God’s presence. After all, we will finally be in His home. Each of us will be clearly aware that God is near us and in us. The sin that clouds our perception of His nearness now will be gone. Being aware of God’s presence today is like trying to hear something drop out of our pocket onto grass when a loud car drives by. It will be such a relief to not have distractions from Satan in heaven and be unhindered in knowing God is with us.
We have no way of knowing for sure the specifics of our intimacy with God in heaven. In the period of a thousand years, will we each get to walk with Jesus for 5 minutes or will our “face time with God” be allocated differently? We all want to see Jesus, but He will have an awful lot of people to get around to.
However, God has this nature about Himself – He is everywhere. He is invisible, but still there. Right now He is as present with us as He will be in heaven. However, each of us perceives His presence at the level to which our spirits have developed. Whatever the nature of our personal time with God in heaven, face-to-face or as it is now, the closeness of our relationship with God will depend on our own response to Him.
“Draw near to me, hear this:
from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
from the time it came to be I have been there.”
Is 48:16a
And without faith it is impossible to please him,
for whoever would draw near to God
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Heb 11:6
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:8
from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
from the time it came to be I have been there.”
Is 48:16a
And without faith it is impossible to please him,
for whoever would draw near to God
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Heb 11:6
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:8
We draw near to God in much the same way as we draw near to one another. But, there are very different intensities in being near to one another. We can enter into a room and pay some attention to one another , akin to being aware of God by reading the Bible and entering a church. On a scale of nearness, let’s call that a “2" on a 1-10 scale. If we thought about theother to understand her or him at a deeper level, that would be like meditating on Bible passages, and that might be a “3" on the Nearness Scale. Talking heart-to-heart transparently would be like prayer that is personal in nature rather than methodical, where we actually sense we are talking to a Person. It would get us to a “5". Complimenting one another and other forms of appreciation would be like pleasing God by loving others as He has asked us to do and receiving His commendation. It would jump us to a “6". Loving one another through the Togethers would take us to “7", “8" or “9", depending on the amount of self-denying love and suffering required. A “10" is probably martyrdom. Levels “7" through “10" bring closeness as a result of empathy with God, having the same thoughts and feelings as Him because of similar experiences.
When we go through trouble with a friend, the relationship gets stronger and emotionally closer. This is an example of how relationships can deepen within an environment of sin. If the trouble is gone when we find out our friend had to endure it and we express our sorrow, the relationship grows only a little. This is an example of how relationships develop unchallenged by sin, in heaven. As you can see, stronger bonds with God can come in the midst of trouble. How important it is to develop a closer relationship with God now before death where sin does challenge.
We each will enter heaven with different levels of spiritual connection with God based on how we grew spiritually to relate to Him before death. While in heaven our relationship with God will grow in any way that does not require struggle against sin, only right now before death do we have the opportunity to develop special kinds of deep closeness with God.
There are ways we deal righteously within sinful culture that are the same ways God deals with sinful society. That builds bonds of empathy for a closer relationship with God. And there are things we can do for God within Christian relationships in a troubled world that God will appreciate. This will also bring our relationship with God to new heights.
Many say that they are excited to go to heaven and see God. However that manifests itself it will be thrilling. But, have we ever considered how Jesus can visit all of His many people more than occasionally? It may be rare when Jesus will physically knock on our doors.
Fortunately, being with Jesus in heaven is a whole lot more than seeing Him. Being with Jesus in heaven will be to constantly be aware of His presence. Feeling Him. Experiencing Him by our side without seeing Him. Once in a while we have that grace now. In heaven it will be unending grace to know that He is with us, not just through belief but through uninhibited spiritual perception. In heaven it will be wonderful to see God, but even more wonderful to vibrantly sense Him.
It will be fantastic to perceive God’s presence as we occasionally do with others now. A blind person, undistracted by vision, is more aware of our presence than a sighted person because he or she is more aware of our body warmth and the sound of our breathing. In a movie theater when I cannot see my wife Jean because it is so dark and also because my mind is on what is happening on the screen, I am still aware of her sitting next to me. Because we have such a good relationship, I am aware of her. I can even occasionally look her way when something happens on the screen because I know we will share the same emotional reaction.
It is not such a foreign idea that we can be close, sometimes closer, even without physical nearness. When I am a thousand miles from home and see something interesting, I automatically wish that Jean were with me to see it also. If I saw the same thing at home, I might not have the same reaction and feel so close to her.
And note that if I did not appreciate my wife or have much in common with her, I probably would not think of her so often. We would not be so connected. So, if now is the time to build appreciation from God and empathy with Him, let’s get at it. It is disastrous to wait until heaven to become more deeply connected to God.
Let’s now turn our attention to these two things that bring us closer to God, those things that develop empathy with God and those behaviors that will bring God’s appreciation.
Every Together done before death will bring one type of closeness or the other or both. For example, the Together titled Look Out for One Another’s Good will bring deeper relationship with God on both counts. In facing the challenge of looking out for other Christians we will develop empathy with God who faces the same difficulty of looking out for His people. And in looking out for the good of those in God’s family, we will gain God’s appreciation.
First, let’s deal with developing closeness with God through empathy.
Relationships emerge from connections that lead to bonding. Understanding what another person is going through and having the same thoughts and feelings can really connect people. This is called empathy. And obeying the Scriptures of the Togethers will build empathy with God that we can experience faintly now but wide open when we get to heaven. Our intimacy with God in heaven can be positively enhanced if we experience in part now what has been God’s experience in our sin-contaminated world. Common experience with Him will lead to empathy and closer relationship.
Since God is the greatest thing about heaven, the level of our relationship with Him will determine just how wonderful heaven will be for us. Would we like to greatly enhance our personal relationship with our Creator? Would we like to walk and talk with Him in heaven where He can tell us things He has done and we can relate and truly value them through having in some lesser but similar way “been there and done that” also?
Even though heaven will be perfect and fantastic for all of us, it does not seem it will be the same for each of us. Our relationships with God will differ depending on how much we can “connect” with Him. Since empathy with God depends on common experiences, we can each increase our relationship with God for all eternity by interacting with each other similarly to how God has been active with us in our sinful culture. Each such experience will be one more “bonding experience”. Each of the 65 Togethers of Scripture mimic in some significant way how God relates to us.
God wants us to know Him with empathy, not to merely know about Him. One place in Scripture where we see the lack of empathetic closeness is when the three disciples could not stay awake while Jesus was praying just before being betrayed and put to death on the cross. Any disciple truly knowing what Jesus was going through because they had been through something a little like it would have been able to stay awake. Jesus wanted that, so we know that God definitely wants us to understand Him, not just know about Him.
Most of us recognize how a relationship jumps in emotional closeness when we share an important experience. Two women find out that they have both survived breast cancer and immediately feel a connection with each other. Two men go ice fishing together and battle off freezing weather for five hours. Later they have an instant comradery whenever they run into each other. Two Christian friends at work help an unbelieving co-worker understand and accept Christ as his Savior and they share a special kind of closeness.
However, that last example of the friends at their place of employment is quite potent. What they experienced in introducing someone to Christ, God has experienced millions of times. He has stuck with many people until they believed. Others who have never patiently conversed with someone until they believe will never have that particular emotional connection in their personal relationship with God. And, they will not be able in heaven to walk along a path and talk with God about the thoughts and feelings of enduringly leading someone to Christ. They can praise God that He has patiently brought someone to Himself through his Son, but they will never be able to feel that relational closeness that comes from actual shared experience.
Often I tell people about the essential value of the Togethers of Scripture to their faith, relationship with Jesus, and preparation for heaven. They hardly try to understand. So, when I read in the Bible that Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” I can experientially and emotionally relate to our Lord’s frustration and disappointment that so many did not listen to what he had to say. In heaven, Jesus and I will have a closer relationship because we can walk and talk about our common sadness about the minimal interest of so many people.
Every Together, all 65 of them, offer Christians the chance to have many moments of closeness in their relationship with God beyond the grave. God has done all 65. When we do them, we build connections of common experience and greater empathy with God for all eternity.
So, each of us must make a serious decision. Do we want throughout eternity to have more heart-to-heart conversations with God about what He did in our sin-contaminated world? If so, we better get busy doing the Togethers more and more by yielding to the Holy Spirit to be increasingly molded into the image of Jesus Christ. We cannot do some important transformation into the likeness of Jesus in heaven – not without the environment of sin within which God worked and that makes the Togethers difficult. Therefore, if we want to have connections and conversations with God about what He did that required great mercy and grace because of sin, we have only a few years to gain them. Then, later after death, we can have marvelous conversations with our God about what He did, and be able to say, “I can somewhat relate, because Christ in and through me did something similar.”
We experience this closer relationship with others now when we use phrases like, “I’m with you” and “Been there, done that” and “I can relate to that” to establish a deeper connection. People grow closer whenever these comments are truthfully made because of empathy gained from similar experience.
As an example, there is a great disparity in understanding bull riding from watching or reading an autobiography of a cowboy and actually hanging on for dear life until tossed unmercifully to the ground by an angry bull. Only another bull rider can comment, “ Been there, done that” and “I can relate to that.” While everyone who just watches can admire the action, they can only honestly say, “I can’t relate to that.” They cannot enjoy a special bond with or have a deeper relationship with the bull rider.
Christians who do not want to miss opportunities to connect and bond with God in heaven will want to grow in obedience to the Togethers now before death takes those opportunities away. For an example let’s use the Together “Bear With One Another”. To become continually more and more like Jesus in bearing with others, each month or two we can find some Christian who is difficult to be around. Then we can let the Holy Spirit empower us to be comfortable around that type of person without judging them or putting unnecessary personal distance between us. We can pray that we will run into a number of people with that characteristic until we find freedom in Christ and can be loving toward them without restriction. After that we can find another type of insensitive or hurtful person and do it again. This will allow us, when walking some road in heaven with Jesus, to have a closer relationship around putting up with offensive people back in the prior sin-infested world.
Jesus said that seeing him is the same as seeing the Father. (John 14:9) So, understanding the character of God depends on our ability to know the specifics of Jesus’ character and behavior. We do this by gaining empathy with Him through practicing Christlike character and seeking opportunities to act out those qualities, as aided by the Holy Spirit. The Togethers are a blueprint to becoming more like Jesus. The level of godliness we achieve will directly affect the degree of closeness with God we will be able to experience.
God will always be 100% available to us, but we will limit that availability to the degree we are not like Jesus and thus not like God. Although we settle for knowing the broad strokes of Jesus’ nature, such as “He cared for people” and “He was selfless”, it is possible to grow deeper into specific aspects of His character. But, developing much of Christ’s character must be done now before the workshop of sin disappears at death.
Let me illustrate this disappearing opportunity for empathy using “correction tape”. At age 74, I remember many years of using little strips of paper with white powder on them to cover typing errors. When I typed the wrong letter onto the paper in my typewriter, I had to back the machine up and strike the wrong letter again with the strip of white powder between the “key” and the paper. Then I had to back up again and type in the correct letter. It was torture.
Those I tell this to fall to into 3 categories: (a) those who have never heard of correction tape; (b) those who have only heard about it; and (c) those who suffered with correction tape. While I like all three people, I feel closer personally to those who have had the same experience and can empathize with my memory of “correction tape torment”.
The point of this is that the opportunity to “connect” or “relate” with me around correction tape is gone. We use computers now and it would be hard to find an old typewriter, much less correction tape. In the same way, when we die the opportunity to share with God in any way what He did in our sinful world is gone. The sinful environment will have disappeared just as correction tape is now gone.
To consider how a relationship with God might grow, think about building a relationship with a new friend. We begin by finding things out about that other person, where he or she lives, how he or she spends time, etc. That level of information is necessary for beginning a relationship with God and is gained in Bible study. But, we Christians should long for a much deeper relationship with God than that. To achieve this, we must go far beyond knowing about God and relate to Him in a more personal way through empathy that comes from obedience.
The next step in building a relationship with a new friend is to show we care by talking with the person, discovering and affirming the things that are important to him or her, and showing appreciation for that person’s qualities. We do this in our growing relationship with God by prayer and praise.
Next, it is important to spend time together doing things important to both us and our new friend. Consider how we like to get together more often with those who have similar experiences, intersts, thoughts and feelings. In heaven, will our Lord only spend little time with us because we have so little in common? Obeying the Togethers of Scripture more and more will produce more and more companionship possibilities with God for all eternity. In developing our relationship with God, we must spend time doing many things together that are important to Him. In short, to develop empathy with God, we need to do what He has done. Jesus specifically did the 65 scripturally-documented Togethers. They were the very ways he loved his disciples.
So, to achieve greater empathy with God for our personal relationship with Him for all of eternity, we must increasingly practice the Togethers. Can I really relate to God’s forgiveness of horrible sins like abandoning spouse and family for another man or woman, if I have not myself actually forgiven something similarly heart-breaking? I can, as it were, praise God “from afar” for His amazing forgiving nature, but it will be less-appreciative praise because of the lack of any amazing forgiveness on my part. Obeying the Scriptures that make up Forgive One Another, a powerful Together, will allow the Holy Spirit to mold us more into the image of Jesus.
Another Together might further deepen understanding. Die for One Another is laying down our lives for other Christians, often risking reputation, financial security and anything necessary to help. It requires we let go of the idols of safety, comfort and pleasure. We all relate to Christ’s death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and set us free for eternal life. If we die for another, we add experiential empathy to our understanding of His sacrifice.
If a person does not mention that he hit two holes-in-one on the golf course this summer in order to not to take away a person’s fifteen minutes of fame when another is excitedly telling of his one hole-in-one, that person dies to self for the good of another. But, such dying to self, while a God-honoring thing to do, will not greatly develop our appreciation for Christ’s death on the cross. But, if a person builds that spiritual discipline of dying for others by befriending impoverished Christians to the chagrin of his or her friends and business associates who now spurn contact, there will be a greater ability to relate to God around Jesus’ great sacrifice.
This ability to have a heart-connected conversation with God about his Son’s death and His great compassion will not grow in heaven after we die. In heaven we cannot experience even a little of what Jesus endured in our sinful, unbelieving world.
This should motivate us to place the 65 Togethers and their Scriptures at top priority. We must stop thinking that we are doing them significantly. We are not! Much work needs to be done on each Together to become more and more like Jesus. And in doing so we make deeper and deeper experiential connections of empathy with God, enhancing our relationship with Him for all eternity.
Closeness with God for all eternity can also be gained by increasing God’s appreciation. Like a “dying wish”, Jesus gave a new command just before His death. The Togethers spell out how to obey that command in detail and receive the appreciation of our Lord.
Jesus told his disciples to love each other as He had loved them. They knew from experience his loving characteristics, but we must discover them.
When we go through trouble with a friend, the relationship gets stronger and emotionally closer. This is an example of how relationships can deepen within an environment of sin. If the trouble is gone when we find out our friend had to endure it and we express our sorrow, the relationship grows only a little. This is an example of how relationships develop unchallenged by sin, in heaven. As you can see, stronger bonds with God can come in the midst of trouble. How important it is to develop a closer relationship with God now before death where sin does challenge.
We each will enter heaven with different levels of spiritual connection with God based on how we grew spiritually to relate to Him before death. While in heaven our relationship with God will grow in any way that does not require struggle against sin, only right now before death do we have the opportunity to develop special kinds of deep closeness with God.
There are ways we deal righteously within sinful culture that are the same ways God deals with sinful society. That builds bonds of empathy for a closer relationship with God. And there are things we can do for God within Christian relationships in a troubled world that God will appreciate. This will also bring our relationship with God to new heights.
Many say that they are excited to go to heaven and see God. However that manifests itself it will be thrilling. But, have we ever considered how Jesus can visit all of His many people more than occasionally? It may be rare when Jesus will physically knock on our doors.
Fortunately, being with Jesus in heaven is a whole lot more than seeing Him. Being with Jesus in heaven will be to constantly be aware of His presence. Feeling Him. Experiencing Him by our side without seeing Him. Once in a while we have that grace now. In heaven it will be unending grace to know that He is with us, not just through belief but through uninhibited spiritual perception. In heaven it will be wonderful to see God, but even more wonderful to vibrantly sense Him.
It will be fantastic to perceive God’s presence as we occasionally do with others now. A blind person, undistracted by vision, is more aware of our presence than a sighted person because he or she is more aware of our body warmth and the sound of our breathing. In a movie theater when I cannot see my wife Jean because it is so dark and also because my mind is on what is happening on the screen, I am still aware of her sitting next to me. Because we have such a good relationship, I am aware of her. I can even occasionally look her way when something happens on the screen because I know we will share the same emotional reaction.
It is not such a foreign idea that we can be close, sometimes closer, even without physical nearness. When I am a thousand miles from home and see something interesting, I automatically wish that Jean were with me to see it also. If I saw the same thing at home, I might not have the same reaction and feel so close to her.
And note that if I did not appreciate my wife or have much in common with her, I probably would not think of her so often. We would not be so connected. So, if now is the time to build appreciation from God and empathy with Him, let’s get at it. It is disastrous to wait until heaven to become more deeply connected to God.
Let’s now turn our attention to these two things that bring us closer to God, those things that develop empathy with God and those behaviors that will bring God’s appreciation.
Every Together done before death will bring one type of closeness or the other or both. For example, the Together titled Look Out for One Another’s Good will bring deeper relationship with God on both counts. In facing the challenge of looking out for other Christians we will develop empathy with God who faces the same difficulty of looking out for His people. And in looking out for the good of those in God’s family, we will gain God’s appreciation.
First, let’s deal with developing closeness with God through empathy.
Relationships emerge from connections that lead to bonding. Understanding what another person is going through and having the same thoughts and feelings can really connect people. This is called empathy. And obeying the Scriptures of the Togethers will build empathy with God that we can experience faintly now but wide open when we get to heaven. Our intimacy with God in heaven can be positively enhanced if we experience in part now what has been God’s experience in our sin-contaminated world. Common experience with Him will lead to empathy and closer relationship.
Since God is the greatest thing about heaven, the level of our relationship with Him will determine just how wonderful heaven will be for us. Would we like to greatly enhance our personal relationship with our Creator? Would we like to walk and talk with Him in heaven where He can tell us things He has done and we can relate and truly value them through having in some lesser but similar way “been there and done that” also?
Even though heaven will be perfect and fantastic for all of us, it does not seem it will be the same for each of us. Our relationships with God will differ depending on how much we can “connect” with Him. Since empathy with God depends on common experiences, we can each increase our relationship with God for all eternity by interacting with each other similarly to how God has been active with us in our sinful culture. Each such experience will be one more “bonding experience”. Each of the 65 Togethers of Scripture mimic in some significant way how God relates to us.
God wants us to know Him with empathy, not to merely know about Him. One place in Scripture where we see the lack of empathetic closeness is when the three disciples could not stay awake while Jesus was praying just before being betrayed and put to death on the cross. Any disciple truly knowing what Jesus was going through because they had been through something a little like it would have been able to stay awake. Jesus wanted that, so we know that God definitely wants us to understand Him, not just know about Him.
Most of us recognize how a relationship jumps in emotional closeness when we share an important experience. Two women find out that they have both survived breast cancer and immediately feel a connection with each other. Two men go ice fishing together and battle off freezing weather for five hours. Later they have an instant comradery whenever they run into each other. Two Christian friends at work help an unbelieving co-worker understand and accept Christ as his Savior and they share a special kind of closeness.
However, that last example of the friends at their place of employment is quite potent. What they experienced in introducing someone to Christ, God has experienced millions of times. He has stuck with many people until they believed. Others who have never patiently conversed with someone until they believe will never have that particular emotional connection in their personal relationship with God. And, they will not be able in heaven to walk along a path and talk with God about the thoughts and feelings of enduringly leading someone to Christ. They can praise God that He has patiently brought someone to Himself through his Son, but they will never be able to feel that relational closeness that comes from actual shared experience.
Often I tell people about the essential value of the Togethers of Scripture to their faith, relationship with Jesus, and preparation for heaven. They hardly try to understand. So, when I read in the Bible that Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” I can experientially and emotionally relate to our Lord’s frustration and disappointment that so many did not listen to what he had to say. In heaven, Jesus and I will have a closer relationship because we can walk and talk about our common sadness about the minimal interest of so many people.
Every Together, all 65 of them, offer Christians the chance to have many moments of closeness in their relationship with God beyond the grave. God has done all 65. When we do them, we build connections of common experience and greater empathy with God for all eternity.
So, each of us must make a serious decision. Do we want throughout eternity to have more heart-to-heart conversations with God about what He did in our sin-contaminated world? If so, we better get busy doing the Togethers more and more by yielding to the Holy Spirit to be increasingly molded into the image of Jesus Christ. We cannot do some important transformation into the likeness of Jesus in heaven – not without the environment of sin within which God worked and that makes the Togethers difficult. Therefore, if we want to have connections and conversations with God about what He did that required great mercy and grace because of sin, we have only a few years to gain them. Then, later after death, we can have marvelous conversations with our God about what He did, and be able to say, “I can somewhat relate, because Christ in and through me did something similar.”
We experience this closer relationship with others now when we use phrases like, “I’m with you” and “Been there, done that” and “I can relate to that” to establish a deeper connection. People grow closer whenever these comments are truthfully made because of empathy gained from similar experience.
As an example, there is a great disparity in understanding bull riding from watching or reading an autobiography of a cowboy and actually hanging on for dear life until tossed unmercifully to the ground by an angry bull. Only another bull rider can comment, “ Been there, done that” and “I can relate to that.” While everyone who just watches can admire the action, they can only honestly say, “I can’t relate to that.” They cannot enjoy a special bond with or have a deeper relationship with the bull rider.
Christians who do not want to miss opportunities to connect and bond with God in heaven will want to grow in obedience to the Togethers now before death takes those opportunities away. For an example let’s use the Together “Bear With One Another”. To become continually more and more like Jesus in bearing with others, each month or two we can find some Christian who is difficult to be around. Then we can let the Holy Spirit empower us to be comfortable around that type of person without judging them or putting unnecessary personal distance between us. We can pray that we will run into a number of people with that characteristic until we find freedom in Christ and can be loving toward them without restriction. After that we can find another type of insensitive or hurtful person and do it again. This will allow us, when walking some road in heaven with Jesus, to have a closer relationship around putting up with offensive people back in the prior sin-infested world.
Jesus said that seeing him is the same as seeing the Father. (John 14:9) So, understanding the character of God depends on our ability to know the specifics of Jesus’ character and behavior. We do this by gaining empathy with Him through practicing Christlike character and seeking opportunities to act out those qualities, as aided by the Holy Spirit. The Togethers are a blueprint to becoming more like Jesus. The level of godliness we achieve will directly affect the degree of closeness with God we will be able to experience.
God will always be 100% available to us, but we will limit that availability to the degree we are not like Jesus and thus not like God. Although we settle for knowing the broad strokes of Jesus’ nature, such as “He cared for people” and “He was selfless”, it is possible to grow deeper into specific aspects of His character. But, developing much of Christ’s character must be done now before the workshop of sin disappears at death.
Let me illustrate this disappearing opportunity for empathy using “correction tape”. At age 74, I remember many years of using little strips of paper with white powder on them to cover typing errors. When I typed the wrong letter onto the paper in my typewriter, I had to back the machine up and strike the wrong letter again with the strip of white powder between the “key” and the paper. Then I had to back up again and type in the correct letter. It was torture.
Those I tell this to fall to into 3 categories: (a) those who have never heard of correction tape; (b) those who have only heard about it; and (c) those who suffered with correction tape. While I like all three people, I feel closer personally to those who have had the same experience and can empathize with my memory of “correction tape torment”.
The point of this is that the opportunity to “connect” or “relate” with me around correction tape is gone. We use computers now and it would be hard to find an old typewriter, much less correction tape. In the same way, when we die the opportunity to share with God in any way what He did in our sinful world is gone. The sinful environment will have disappeared just as correction tape is now gone.
To consider how a relationship with God might grow, think about building a relationship with a new friend. We begin by finding things out about that other person, where he or she lives, how he or she spends time, etc. That level of information is necessary for beginning a relationship with God and is gained in Bible study. But, we Christians should long for a much deeper relationship with God than that. To achieve this, we must go far beyond knowing about God and relate to Him in a more personal way through empathy that comes from obedience.
The next step in building a relationship with a new friend is to show we care by talking with the person, discovering and affirming the things that are important to him or her, and showing appreciation for that person’s qualities. We do this in our growing relationship with God by prayer and praise.
Next, it is important to spend time together doing things important to both us and our new friend. Consider how we like to get together more often with those who have similar experiences, intersts, thoughts and feelings. In heaven, will our Lord only spend little time with us because we have so little in common? Obeying the Togethers of Scripture more and more will produce more and more companionship possibilities with God for all eternity. In developing our relationship with God, we must spend time doing many things together that are important to Him. In short, to develop empathy with God, we need to do what He has done. Jesus specifically did the 65 scripturally-documented Togethers. They were the very ways he loved his disciples.
So, to achieve greater empathy with God for our personal relationship with Him for all of eternity, we must increasingly practice the Togethers. Can I really relate to God’s forgiveness of horrible sins like abandoning spouse and family for another man or woman, if I have not myself actually forgiven something similarly heart-breaking? I can, as it were, praise God “from afar” for His amazing forgiving nature, but it will be less-appreciative praise because of the lack of any amazing forgiveness on my part. Obeying the Scriptures that make up Forgive One Another, a powerful Together, will allow the Holy Spirit to mold us more into the image of Jesus.
Another Together might further deepen understanding. Die for One Another is laying down our lives for other Christians, often risking reputation, financial security and anything necessary to help. It requires we let go of the idols of safety, comfort and pleasure. We all relate to Christ’s death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and set us free for eternal life. If we die for another, we add experiential empathy to our understanding of His sacrifice.
If a person does not mention that he hit two holes-in-one on the golf course this summer in order to not to take away a person’s fifteen minutes of fame when another is excitedly telling of his one hole-in-one, that person dies to self for the good of another. But, such dying to self, while a God-honoring thing to do, will not greatly develop our appreciation for Christ’s death on the cross. But, if a person builds that spiritual discipline of dying for others by befriending impoverished Christians to the chagrin of his or her friends and business associates who now spurn contact, there will be a greater ability to relate to God around Jesus’ great sacrifice.
This ability to have a heart-connected conversation with God about his Son’s death and His great compassion will not grow in heaven after we die. In heaven we cannot experience even a little of what Jesus endured in our sinful, unbelieving world.
This should motivate us to place the 65 Togethers and their Scriptures at top priority. We must stop thinking that we are doing them significantly. We are not! Much work needs to be done on each Together to become more and more like Jesus. And in doing so we make deeper and deeper experiential connections of empathy with God, enhancing our relationship with Him for all eternity.
Closeness with God for all eternity can also be gained by increasing God’s appreciation. Like a “dying wish”, Jesus gave a new command just before His death. The Togethers spell out how to obey that command in detail and receive the appreciation of our Lord.
Jesus told his disciples to love each other as He had loved them. They knew from experience his loving characteristics, but we must discover them.
“A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
John 13:34
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
John 15:12
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
John 13:34
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
John 15:12
Even though the gospels do not tell us specifically how Jesus loved his disciples, we can solve this dilemma. Jesus would have done with his disciples what the Bible tells us to do when we are together. These comprise our 65 Togethers of Scripture.
God will appreciate it when we take care of His loved ones. He explains in the Scriptures His best way of living, and that is a life of love for one another. God’s appreciation will add to the closeness we feel with Him in heaven in the same way that our appreciation of one another’s concern brings us closer. To understand this, think of how a parent is close to his or her children based on how cooperative they are.
Surely our relationship with God is the treasure that we store up in heaven and that we sell all we own in order to possess. If we consider our relationship with God for all eternity as loving closeness, then the following verses become clear. The payoff in relationship with God is what really counts. It is the treasure to store up, the treasure worth everything we own, the reason we need to not hold onto anything but God, and the reason to not live for wealth.
God will appreciate it when we take care of His loved ones. He explains in the Scriptures His best way of living, and that is a life of love for one another. God’s appreciation will add to the closeness we feel with Him in heaven in the same way that our appreciation of one another’s concern brings us closer. To understand this, think of how a parent is close to his or her children based on how cooperative they are.
Surely our relationship with God is the treasure that we store up in heaven and that we sell all we own in order to possess. If we consider our relationship with God for all eternity as loving closeness, then the following verses become clear. The payoff in relationship with God is what really counts. It is the treasure to store up, the treasure worth everything we own, the reason we need to not hold onto anything but God, and the reason to not live for wealth.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matt 6:19-21
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matt 13:44
And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Mark 10:21
No one can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matt 6:24 |
It is disastrous to wait until heaven to become more deeply connected to God.