Worlds Apart! (?)

     There's something extra special, and extra memorable about travelling to a foreign and exotic location! 
     Recently, I travelled to Greece with my eldest daughter.  We didn't visit the typical tourist destinations of white-washed buildings with blue roofs overlooking scenic ocean vistas.  We visited the historic locations associated with the missionary journey of the Apostle Paul!    
     This kind of trip adds another dimension to appreciating the events of the Bible.  Seeing a map and photographs of various locations is a real benefit to learning -- but being "on-site" provides the unique experience of seeing, and sensing surroundings, measuring distances, and inwardly contemplating what the preserved ruins of ancient cities could have "felt like" in the time of the Apostle's visits.             For us to get to Philippi, Thessaloniki, Berea, Corinth, and Athens first required travelling overseas a great distance, but we also got to travel "through time" as we walked among the very places mentioned in the New Testament.  It really does stimulate one's imagination and appreciation.    
     It also makes me think about my faith.  The Lord inhabits every dimension of existence.  Yet, at a particular time in history, in Christ, the Lord lived and moved and had His being among us.  He taught about the realities of a New Kingdom that would not be subject to the sinfulness of this world… a place of perfect love, life, truth, praise, purpose, and joy unspeakable: a new existence!
     I can tell you that our long-distance trip cannot compare to the world that Jesus has brought to us where we live here and now!  By his Spirit, we now sense and believe in a reality that is unapprehended by the common man.  Jesus has birthed into our "beings" a longing to be in his presence.  Any fatigue, trial, or failing of this life is simply a reminder of the promised liberation awaiting God's new creation -- announced to the world by the resurrection of Jesus and received by the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus has brought his heavenly world to us!  It is actually overtaking the world as we have always known it… we get to walk in it, appreciate its perspectives, and cherish what is yet to come.  Nothing can compare to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ! 

Preaching to our tour group in Athens, Greece, at "Mars Hill" (see Acts 17).