Nationals & Heaven

I have team devotions this coming week with the volleyball team. As you'll be able to tell from this, Dordt's team made it to Nationals! This blog is my way to organize my thoughts of what I wanna say. Thanks for being my guinea pigs! ;)

All this Nationals stuff made me think of probably the most common verse in the Bible. John 3:16...and I hope you're curious why because I want to dig into it more with you all.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

For much of my life, I could have inserted "but go to heaven someday" in for "have eternal life" in that verse.
Which, if you think about it, that sounds about as ridiculous as saying that we play volleyball so that we can go to Nationals someday. Sure, Nationals is our hopeful last destination, but it's not our purpose in playing the entire season, right?? And I think it's the same that even though heaven is our hopeful last destination, it shouldn't be our purpose in why we believe in Him either. I think that means there's a lot more to what "shall not perish, but have eternal life" really means.

Jesus says in John 17:3 "Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ."
So instead of inserting "go to heaven someday" we should read John 3:16 as, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that they may know Him." 

But what does know really mean?
Well, have you ever had a time when someone asks if you know so-and-so and you reply with "Well, I know of them; I know they do this or whatever, but I don't really know them personally."?
For much of my life, that was the case with me and Jesus. I knew of Him and what He did for me on the cross, but I didn't really know a thing about Him personally. I didn't know His character or personality. I didn't really know what He was passionate about or what kind of desires He had. I didn't even really understand what He loves or hates all that much.
I only knew of Him.
In other words, you could say that I really wasn't experiencing the eternal life that John 3:16 talks about at all. And according to that verse, the opposite of eternal life is perishing. Which again, I always thought of "shall not perish" as "shall not go to hell." But I've discovered that perishing can happen in this life, too. If we don't know Jesus, then in a lot of ways, we are perishing right now. It has nothing to do with when eternity starts. If we don't know Jesus, we are missing out on the life that Jesus offers. He tells us that He came that we may have life and life in ABUNDANCE. If we're not experiencing that abundant life through knowing Jesus, we are perishing. I didn't really recognize it at the time, but because of the way I understood John 3:16, I was perishing.

But between my junior & senior year of high school, I read a book called Irresistible Revolution in preparation for a serve trip to Mexico. In that book, Shane Claiborne quotes some guy that asks "If there were no heaven and no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow Him for the joy, life, and fulfillment He offers right now?" This really challenged me because it made realize that I didn't have much genuine joy or fulfillment in following Jesus. I tried to follow the Bible because I knew it was the right thing and I wanted to please God. And don't get me wrong, those are important reasons to follow Jesus. But I was missing out because I wasn't experiencing the abundant joy-filled life that I could be from following Jesus!

If someone asked you if you would still play volleyball if there were no Nationals, I'm pretty sure everyone would say yes. But can we honestly all say the same about following Jesus? What kind of "eternal life" are we believing in Jesus for? Heaven or knowing God?

As you think about that, I want to give you a fair warning: if you're really serious about wanting the eternal life that starts now and continues into heaven--the knowing Jesus kind, then that means you're giving Holy Spirit permission to work things in your life that might not seem all that good or comfortable at first. It's called a refiner's fire. Holy Spirit needs to burn away all the impurities in our hearts & lives in order for us to come out as gold. We can't fully know Jesus if we're full of stuff that's not of Him ya know?

Take my engagement being broken off for example. It was the most painful thing that I've been through thus far in life, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it was also probably one of the best things that could have happened to me because of what it did to my heart and how it gave me an even deeper knowledge of Jesus.
I know now more than ever that Jesus really, really wants to come back and marry His Bride, the Church. He's been waiting for over 2000 years! I understand now how incredibly patient and unconditionally faithful He is. I am in awe at His willingness to wait and wait and wait until His Bride is fully prepared for Him to come back.

I just think that that's some of the best things to not just know of but to really know & understand about Jesus. I probably never would have gotten that deep of an understanding if it wasn't for what I went through in my engagement getting broken off. And I know my heart is better able to know Jesus because of the impurities that were removed through that refining time.

My hope for you girls in this week at Nationals, if that you take some time to consider the similarities to our lives. I hope you come to realize that we don't believe so that we can escape perishing in hell and go to heaven instead just like we don't play volleyball just so we can make it to Nationals. We play for the love of the game, and I hope that we all come to believe in Jesus for the love of knowing Him intimately. And that you each experience the abundant, joy-filled life that Jesus offers those that follow Him.

I hope, too, that if you're ever asked the two questions "What if there were no Nationals, would you still play volleyball? and "What if there were no heaven and no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow Him for the joy, life, and fulfillment He brings you right now?" We'd all be able to answer both the same way-- "Absolutely!" :)