That's the Big Plan. In the meantime, however, God wants to live with us, and has given us His Spirit to live in us — simply because we really do matter to Him. And that's the point of it all, isn't it. That's where joy comes from. This kind of joy doesn't rule out suffering and problems and struggle. But knowing that we matter to God somehow transcends our struggles and difficulties. God actually enjoys it when we live in harmony with Him — body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions — every inch of our being.

This is what salvation is about — this living in harmony with God. Salvation is, at one level, a legal deal. We are guilty of sin, and any sin goes against God's core nature. But Jesus died on a cross and He took our sin upon Himself, and freed us from our sin. How that works, nobody fully understands. We simply know that it does.

But, so far as Jesus is concerned, salvation is more. It is living more and more in harmony with God, a process that will go on forever. So, what we have in Jesus' death on our behalf is a one-time deal. Then, there is the on going need to be reminded that we can experience healing every day. The goal is not to be just forgiven, but to be changed into becoming the kind of person that God originally had in mind when He made us. That's why real Christians talk about being generous and loving and compassionate. It is one thing to be forgiven, it is another to become more and more and more a person who is loving, kind, gentle, and good — the way you'd really like to be.

If salvation is only a matter of being forgiven so that when we die we get to go to heaven, then salvation only means we have a pass to go to somewhere else — and that kicks in only when we die But Jesus had something a whole lot better in mind. He said that when we have a relationship with God through Jesus, we are connected with God now, and we'll be connected forever. Salvation is a lot more than just about me — it means that all of creation will be restored and we'll enjoy living again in a brand new world.

MOVING FORWARD

And now, a word about heaven. It's not what you think. We know that God hasn't given up on creation but is, right now, working to bring it back to how He originally intended it to be. So, we don't talk about people going somewhere else at the end of time, but rather we talk about coming here, to this world/universe at the end of time. Here's how that works. When we die, we go to be with God. One of the major writers of the New Testament (Paul) said that "to be absent in the body is to be present with Christ". We'll be with God and all the people who have died before we did (friends, parents, brothers, sisters, etc.), and that will be wonderful. At the end of time, we and God will return to live forever in a new world/universe where God has cleaned up and rebuilt His original creation, and it will be perfectly restored.

It gets even better. God is interested in human souls, but He is interested in a lot more. Remember Paul? Here's how he described it: "...all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe — people and things, animals and atoms — get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies; all because of Jesus' death ...". This means everything gets fixed -- every bird and tree and mountain and star, and every single square inch of the physical creation. In Jesus, God is putting it all back together. And, God Himself is coming back to this new world just to live with us. Check out Revelation 21:1-3.

Salvation at a personal level is made possible through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. We don't earn it. We can't earn it. All we can do is ask for it. And the Bible promises that if we simply ask Christ to come into our heart, He does just that and the life of Christ flows into us. We are connected with Him and He is connected with us.

The Bible tells a big story — It's the one Jesus invites us into. It's the story that is rooted in, driven by, and permeated with God's love. It is a story about the choices people make — how stupid we sometimes are; how deliberately we reject the good and chase after the evil. But it is also about the love of God that is bigger and stronger and more compelling than all of that put together. It is about some day enjoying God's good world, where everything that is wrong is made right.