The good which our dear God has in store/for his saints in his holy dwelling - /there is not, after tracing its secrets, anyone who can relate a hundredth part of it.

  - Anonymous, Saltair na Rann (Irish 9th-10th century)

For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

  - Psalm 84.10

The Apostle Paul insisted that all who believe in Jesus are already seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph. 2.6). We have a seat in the throne room of the Lord, a vantage point from which to look out on all of life.

David reminds us that that privileged seat is a place where fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore are the order of the day (Ps. 16.11). How could it be otherwise? Secure in Jesus. Surrounded by beautiful sights, songs, people, and angelic hosts. Safe and at peace above the fray and frenzy of our getting-and-spending generation. Yeah - put me down for one of those.

Well, we do, in fact, dwell there. This is our base of operations for life in this world. The sons of Korah (authors of Psalm 84) knew only the experience of being in God's temporal dwelling place - His temple in Jerusalem. We are actually seated with Christ in heavenly places, and dwell in an infinite temple of glory, holiness, beauty, and love.

So what keeps us from experiencing that reality more fully? Why is that, for most of us, being seated with Christ in heavenly places is just so much religious talk, and not something really to know, experience, and enjoy?

I suspect two reasons: First, our secular age does not encourage such thinking, and we are, alas, more the children of our age than we may be ready to admit. Second, we don't really believe that a day in the courts of the Lord is better than a thousand elsewhere. Oh, of course, we "believe" that - at some level, to some degree of affirmation. But we don't believe it so that we actually experience it, see our lives unfolding before us from that vantage point, and draw on the beauty, power, and glory of that eternal dwelling to fill our own lives with the same.

It's just not real to us.

But that doesn't mean it's not real.

The eternal dwelling place of God is real, it's just not real in a material and temporal way. It's real and all around us. Christ is there, and so are all the angels and departed saints who fill that unseen hall with shouts and choruses of glory. It's really real, and Paul commands us to fix our minds there, focus our affections there, value being in Christ's presence, where He is, above all other priorities in our lives (Col. 3.1-3).

The world we see is not all there is - not by a long shot. If we really want to live, we need to learn how to penetrate the veil which separates us from the unseen realm and take our proper place with Jesus, looking out with eternal eyes on an eternal vista of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Then we'll know what it really is to live.

T. M. Moore, Principal

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And, oh, by the way, this is one of the primary themes discussed in the course, Spiritual Maturity1: Revival, in which you may enroll free of charge at The Ailbe Seminary. We'll even supply a mentor to take you through it if you like. No charge.