HOW WILL WE BE
DIFFERENT IN THE AFTERLIFE?
7-27-08
Jesus told the thief on the cross dying next to him, "Today you will be
with me in Paradise." My question is, "What kind of person was that
thief when Jesus met him in Paradise?"
Did he still have the character of a thief or was the presence of Jesus
at this climactic moment in his life enough to transform him?
If you died this moment and went to heaven would your inner being be
just like it is right now?
Surely God will not rip out all the things that make us who we are. If
God did such a thing, we would not even know each other in heaven. Why
would you want to see loved ones if who they were when you knew them was
all ripped away and they were someone totally different.
I have benefited by studying the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy. I have
often said she may be the only person in America in her century to
create a totally original theological system. One thing she said that
makes sense to me is that we will take who we are with us when we die
and awake with it in another place. Our identity remains intact. We will
take our essential personality and our level of spiritual development
wherever we go. Otherwise, we could not, as a living soul, grow into
higher and higher beings. We could not fulfill the calling we are given
to go from glory to glory.
My favorite mystic, Joel Goldsmith, said, "I am in no hurry to leave
this plane but I know the day will come when I do leave it. I also know
that every bit of Light that has been given me is the Light that will go
with me, and before me, and will be my spiritual treasure throughout all
the ages to come."
What a magnificent way to look at death and the afterlife! Accepting
that your physical life will end but seeing so clearly that you will
never lose any of the Light you have collected in your immortal soul.
Seeing that every Truth you have ever learned will forever be with you.
A friend wrote a sweet song telling how we would be angels when we get
to heaven. That was a turn off to me. I have never felt a desire to be
an angel but I do admit that I do not have the slightest idea what it
would be like to be one. I am too tainted by the image of a winged being
with a halo. But as a spiritual friend once said to me, "You may already
be an angel sent here as a human to accomplish some angelic task."
Her statement resonated as possible truth to me. We know so little about
the afterlife and have a limited amount of sacred writings on the
subject.
One writer did say we would be like Jesus "for we shall see Him as He
is." There will be something transformative about just being in His
presence. Just seeing Him as He is. Surely this does not mean that we
will look like his form so much as we will look like His essence. His
love will enter us and go out of us to others as His love and our love
mixed and fused together. What a majestic concept!
Jeremiah said God told him, "Before you were conceived, I knew you." So
we've been here a long time. God knew us before we were Jeremiah, or
Dalton Roberts or whatever your name is. I cannot help but wonder how
much of what we now are was with us then?
Anything is possible to our Infinite Source. I believe it was John who
said, "Eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard, nor has it entered into
the heart of man, what God has in store for those who love Him."
Truth is, those who have learned to love are already in heaven.
